Well-known Physician Research Articles

George Sclavunos (1869-1954): Anatomical Insights and His Contribution into the "Magenstrasse of Waldeyer".

The purpose of this article is to present a well-known physician and highlight his contribution into an essential, but neglected anatomical feature. George Sclavunos (1869-1954) was a 20th century Greek physician, whose scientific work was a significant milestone in global medical knowledge. In 1899 he became Professor of Anatomy and Head Director of the Department of Anatomy. In 1906 Sclavunos G. published the first volume of the three volume book "Human Anatomy" (1906-1926), which is characterized by its unparalleled illustrations. For more than a century it was the most important book of medical literature in Greece. In 1926 he became a Full Member of the Academy of Athens and was named Life Partner of the International Anatomical Society. His interests included Anatomy, Physiology, Histology, as well as Osteology and Syndesmology. In his book "Human Anatomy", he described for first time the "Sialine Groove of the Stomach", which was described by Waldeyer-Hartz almost at the same time as the "Magenstrasse", a German word that means "stomach road". It is a ribbon-like path that extends along the lesser curvature of the stomach from the gastric cardia to the antrum and releases the gastric content directly into the small intestine. Its importance is confirmed by its association not only with drug delivery, but also with anti-obesity surgical techniques. The old German term has come back into common medical usage in view of the commonly performed Magenstrasse and Mill procedure, a form of bariatric surgery. CONCLUSION: Sclavunos G. managed to observe an anatomical structure that has remained of great importance until today.

A Study of Factors Influencing the Volume of Responses to Posts in Physician Online Community.

Today's diverse health needs place greater demands on physicians. However, individual doctors have limited capabilities and may encounter many unsolvable medical problems. The physician online community provides a platform for physicians to communicate with each other and help each other. Physicians can post for help about problems they encounter at work. The number of responses to physicians' posts is critical to whether or not the problem is resolved. This study collected information on 13,226 posts from a well-known physician online community in China to analyze the factors that influence the number of post replies. In the analysis of the post content of the physician online community, this study innovatively introduces word usage features in the medical field. TextMind was used to extract the rate of several types of words in posts that frequently appear when describing medical information. Ultimately, we found that the rate of time words, visual words, auditory words, and physiological process words used in posts had a positive and significant effect on the number of post responses. A series of new post features has been found to have an impact on the number of post replies in physician online communities. This finding is beneficial for physicians to quickly obtain peer assistance through online platforms, increasing the likelihood of solving workplace challenges and improving physician care, as well as the success of physician online communities.

Refik Saydam: A Pioneer in the Fight Against Infectious Diseases

Refik Saydam (1881-1942), MD, who served as the Minister of Health for 15 years in the early period of the republic, is a well-known physician and politician who is being remembered during the current pandemic, especially in terms of fighting against epidemics (...)

The Role of Animal in Abū Bakr al-Rāzī’s Theory of the Perfection of the Soul

Abstract Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. ca. 925), a well-known physician and Muslim philosopher, has not yet been widely considered for his philosophical reflections on animals. An inspection of al-Rāzī’s works demonstrates his endeavor, based on his cosmology, to come up with a way of the perfection of the soul and becoming liberated from the terrestrial world. As this paper maintains, his investigation of animals is aimed at developing his theory of the perfection of the soul. After a brief clarification of the theory, which entails a discussion of the interaction of the two theoretical and practical aspects of human reason, this paper will discuss seven cases in which al-Rāzī uses the discussion of animals to develop his theory of the perfection of the soul.

FR01-01 CIVIL WAR MANUALS OF MILITARY SURGERY- SAMUEL D. GROSS VS. JULIAN J. CHISOLM

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: Samuel D. Gross (1805-1884) was a U.S. Surgeon and proto-urologist who influenced the rise of American surgery. But his counterpart from Charleston, Julian John Chisolm (1830-1903) was equally compelling surgeon and author. Both surgeons produced the definitive Manuals of Military Surgery utilized by each side during the American Civil War. METHODS: A review of the literature of all aspects of both Gross and Chisolm was undertaken with review of each of their published Manuals of Military Surgery in 1861 editions. Gross is memorialized by his own titanic autobiography in two volumes, whereas Chisolm is recalled by the now rare 1930 memoir housed at the rare books library of the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. RESULTS: At the outset of hostilities between the Union North and the Confederate South the world-famous surgeon at Jefferson in Philadelphia wrote a manual representing medical instructions for army surgeons that was quickly pirated by the South, but formally written by Julian Chisolm with both appearing in 1861. Chisolm’s Manual would continuously updated by knowledge acquired during the war and eventually reached the 4th edition by 1864 whereas Gross did not update his which would be replaced by the Army’s own Manual. CONCLUSIONS: Gross was perhaps the most prepared person in the U.S. at the outbreak of hostilities- he composed his Manual in just nine days and published in a fortnight from the time of its inception. J.B. Lippincott & Co from Philadelphia publishing. It was immediately pirated by a southern publisher in Virginia as it sold out quickly and a second edition appeared in 1862. Chisolm’s first edition was 447 pages with no surgical plates. The third edition from Columbia in 1864 was 104 pages longer now with 26 graphic surgical plates. One cannot help to point out just one of many peculiarities that pertain to both Civil War authors and surgeons- Sir William Osler married Gross’s son’s widowed wife Grace and they moved just down the street at Johns Hopkins to Chisolm who lived at 55 Franklin Street in Baltimore and must have met him there before his death as he was a well-known physician at the University of Maryland at the time. In fact it was Chisolm who got Osler to act as Chairman for the AMA during its meeting in 1894. Source of Funding: None

The Impact of Joining a Team on the Initial Trust in Online Physicians.

Introduction: Trust is a major challenge for the online market and this is especially the case for e-consultation platforms. Research that promotes online physician trust is highly desirable. In this study, we focus on whether joining a team led by a well-known physician will increase physician trust and what team characteristics will affect this trust. Materials and Methods: Brand extension theory is applied to the healthcare context to explain the impact of joining a team on physician trust. Specifically, both team strength and team similarity are hypothesized to have the main effects. In addition, team size is hypothesized to have a moderating effect. A 2 × 2 × 2 experiment was conducted to test the proposed research model. Results: The results indicated that joining a team would significantly increase physician trust (p < 0.001). Both team strength (p < 0.001) and team similarity (p < 0.001) had positive impacts on physician trust. In addition, a larger team size resulted in a reduced positive effect of team strength on physician trust (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Joining a physician team is an effective and low-cost method to address the initial trust problem of unknown online physicians.

Gender and emotion in exile: Evelyn Scott's brazilian experience

In late 1913, the American writer Evelyn Scott eloped with Cyril Kay-Scott, a well-known physician who was, then, married, father of four, and more than twice her senior. Without passports, taking with them very little money, the couple fled first from New Orleans to New York, then to London, finally to Brazil, where they eventually faced poverty, starvation, and almost complete isolation in the backlands of Bahia. Using concepts derived from Critical Discourse Analysis, Anthropology of Emotions, Gender Studies, and Exile Studies, this work aims to examine issues of gender and emotion in Evelyn Scott’s autobiographical account of her Brazilian self-imposed exile which extended from 1914 to 1919. The analysis is based on her autobiography Escapade (1923) and on part of Cyril Kay-Scott’s Life is too short (1943) . Results indicate that, although the couple suffered a great deal in exile, the experience proved to be particularly painful for Evelyn Scott, who did not speak a word of Portuguese. Besides, she was pregnant and had to go through a difficult childbirth in the outskirts of the city of Natal. The entire context contributed to make gender and emotion crucial aspects for Evelyn Scott’s experience both as a woman and as a writer.

Regularities of application of acupoints to relieving clinical indications of Sanguan (cun, guan and chi, three places at the wrist where the pulse is usually taken) in classical book Mai Jing (Pulse Classic)

According to indications of Sanguan (cun, guan and chi, three places at the wrist where the pulse is usually taken) described in book Mai Jing (Pulse Classic), the selection of acupoints is based on the location of problems and pulse conditions. WANG Shu-he (201-280, a well-known physician of the Wei and Jin dynasties) chose the operation method and stimulating intensity according to the nature of clinical disorders, that is, performing acupuncture or moxibusion in accordance with pulse conditions, or performing reinforcing or reducing needling manipulations based on pulse conditions. Clinical indications of Sanguan described in Mai Jing originate from Suwen: Sanbu Jiuhou Lun (Plain Questions: Discussion on Three Portions and Nine Pulse-takings) and are also influenced by Shanghan Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage Diseases) and Jingui Yao Lue (Synopsis of Prescriptions of the Golden Chamber). It inherits ZHANG Zhong-jing's clinical thinking of "pulse-syndrome-treatment" and supplements the content of acupuncture and moxibustion treatment, and also influenced the contents of indications of acupoints in book Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing (A-B Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion) and Qian Jin Yao Fang (Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold). For this reason, it is necessary to unscramble the Mai Jing from clinical perspective of acupuncture and moxibustion, and to explore the thinking and practice mode of clinical diagnosis and treatment of clinical conditions by acupuncture and moxibustion.

Devoted to E.M. Evgen'ev-Tish

The article illustrates the life of E.M. Evgen'ev-Tish, the well-known Physician, Forensic Medical Expert, Scientist, Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine (1954-1956) of the Kazan State Medical University. He is the author of the well-known monograph 'Determination of the Postmortem Interval in Forensic Medical Practice' published in 1963, which embraced all possible study methods on that subject.

Some Doctrinal Aspects Contained into the Religious Questions of Ibn Khatima's Treatise of the Pest (14th Century)

This paper is a study of fragments contained into the religious questions (VII-X) of pest treatise, entitled in Arabic 'Tahsil gharad al-qasid fi-tafsil al-marad al-wafid' (succeeding in clarify pest disease), which was written in the 14th century by the well-known Spanish physician Ibn Khatima (d.circa1369), being referred to the Black Death, the terrible pandemic that devastated Asia, Africa and Europe at that time. The article includes an introduction about the author and his literary and scientific significance, as well as a section containing a few fragments of the religious questions (VII-X), translated to English from the Arabic manuscript no.1785 from the Library of El Escorial and concerning to some doctrinal aspects of the Hadith, the dogmatic law of Medieval Islam and the Islamic thought in the Middle Ages.

The Osler Library Prints Collection.

The Osler Library Prints Collection Shelley McKellar The Osler Library Prints Collection http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/oslerprints/index.php The Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University houses the personal library of well-known physician and bibliophile Sir William Osler, who bequeathed his collection of roughly eight thousand rare medical and scientific texts to his alma mater. Today, the Osler Library contains more than one hundred thousand works, making it the largest library for historical research in medicine and health in Canada. Not everyone may be able to travel to Montreal—although I strongly urge you to visit—so researchers will be pleased to learn that Osler librarians are making some of their historical material available online by digitizing their special collections, including the Osler Library Prints Collection. The Osler Library Prints Collection consists of approximately 2,500 visual documents, predominantly prints but also cartoons, drawings, posters, and some photographs, ranging from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The majority [End Page 435] of the collection consists of portraits, mostly of British and European medical men, including recognizable prints removed from publications. Images of some Canadian physicians can be found, often captured by the Montreal-based photographers William Notman and James Inglis. (Photos of Sir William Osler and his family have also been digitized but reside in the separate online William Osler Photo Collection, which incidentally created the template for subsequent Osler Library digitization projects.) There are lots of cartoons and caricatures in this prints collection, in both English and French, including etchings by Scottish caricaturist John Kay, late-nineteenth-century color lithographs from Vanity Fair, and full-page comics by the French firm of Pellerin and Co. (renamed l'Imagerie d'Epinal). "Cartoons and Caricatures" is one of eight subcategories imposed on the collection and presented to visitors on the home page. Interested in browsing the collection by creator, scenes, or advertisements? For each of these options, there is a connecting page that offers a short paragraph that frames the subject material, followed by a table presentation of relevant collection items. For example, if you visit the advertisements category, did you know that the Homburg pharmaceutical company (and presumably others) distributed portraits of accomplished German physicians with information about various drugs on the back? The site is easy to navigate and offers good, but not overwhelming, descriptive text to support the online database of prints. The menu bar on the home page is uncluttered and neatly organizes pertinent information. The "About" menu tab describes the collection in more detail than the home page, such as offering information about the various sources that constitute this collection. I quite appreciated the separate menu tab dedicated to printing techniques that reminded me about the differences of engravings and etchings, stipple and mezzotint, as well as lithographs and photographs. Use the drop down menu "Browse Pictures" and you'll find a "Browse All Pictures" option below the site's eight suggested subcategories. This last menu tab seems redundant, as it repeats information located on the home page, but since the menu bar remains constant on every page, it serves to be useful as you click deeper into the site. So did I find what I was looking for, or better yet, some unexpected materials that I might have missed otherwise? In my opinion, the value of any online collection is linked to how robust the search engine is and to document delivery and readability. This online collection site does both well. I liked the simple search box (with advanced search option) at the top of every page. This meant that I could search the database by print number or by keyword anywhere in the record entry. Given my interest in medical technology, I did a search using the keyword "instrument." Forty-eight images appeared, in thumbnail form with brief identifier tags, allowing me a quick overview before I clicked to enlarge an image and peruse the full record. My search results included portraits, medical scenes, apparatus illustrations, caricatures and cartoons, posters and comics. I viewed a range of items with connections to instruments, including: Robert Cooper's engraved portrait of English otologist John Harrison Curtis, who invented several new...

Quarantine as a public health measure against an emerging infectious disease: syphilis in Zurich at the dawn of the modern era (1496-1585).

Syphilis is considered as one of the most devastating sexually transmitted diseases in human history. Based on historical records, the “Böse Blattern” (German for “Evil Pocks”) spread through Europe after 1495 and shared symptoms with what we know today as syphilis. Many cities took measures to protect their population. Here, transliterations of archival documents from the 15th and 16th century (provided in the appendix) are used to trace the steps taken by the governing authorities in Zurich to deal with this emerging infectious disease. One of the central measures taken by the city was to establish a quarantine facility referred to as the “Blatternhaus”. The city doctors, including the well-known physician and naturalist Conrad Gessner, oversaw the obligatory quarantine and treatment of patients with symptoms. Treatment could range from better nutrition, herbal remedies and skin ointments to aggressive heat therapy and “smoking”. Furthermore, the affliction was suspected as a sexually acquired disease, hence prostitutes and infected foreigners were extradited from the city. Meanwhile, the church used its social influence to promote a more “Christian” behavior. In several respects, the public health measures taken in the 16th century against a new and menacing epidemic do not diverge in their basic rationale from approaches used during the 20th century and today.

EMIL KRAEPELIN AND GERMAN PSYCHIATRY IN MULTICULTURAL DORPAT/TARTU, 1886–1891

1. Languages in the psychiatric microcosm--Introduction her novel of 1955, dedicated 'to my home town of Dorpat', it seemed only right to the writer Else Hueck-Dehio (1897-1976), with her romanticising memories, that the figure of a Baltic German medical professor in Dorpat shortly before the First World War should be portrayed in a conversation with a patient speaking Estonian (Hueck-Dehio 1955:46-47). As the daughter of a well-known physician for internal medicine pathology in Dorpat, Karl Dehio (1851-1927), who not only played an important role in the 'Medical Society of Dorpat' (EAA 3576.1.4, Meeting minutes of the Medical Society of Dorpat), but also at the University there since he was called in 1886, the author could well have obtained a view of medical practice in the city that she was to leave after the war. Her fictional figure, Professor Erhard Haller, understands the Estonian words of his patient, a peasant woman, who represents the native population its demands. I want him to be clever like you, Herr Professor, she says of her son, and like all the many Saksad (Germans) living in their white houses, who understand everything better. The dear Lord did not create cleverness just for you. That is why we send our sons to the secondary school in the town. The professor in the novel, worried as he is about the future of the German-speaking elite their culture in the Baltic region, still understands not only the words, but also the intention of the Estonian patient: In his just heart he could not refuse the demand for social equality which the words of the peasant woman so clearly conveyed, the directness of it going straight to the heart, as does all that is primitive. He had been well acquainted with this phenomenon for years, namely the Estonian peasant sons who sat on the school benches, writing excellent examinations by means of iron-hard work. He saw here a development which not only could not be stopped, but was justified. Over 30 years after the rather abrupt end of Baltic German privilege in the Baltic provinces that had now long belonged to Russia, the author portrayed in a rather unreflective manner the elitist position of a professor towards the Estonian population, which was regarded as lower-class, but with whom he at least tried to communicate in their native language. But this was probably not a matter of course. For a long time, the Medical Faculty in particular had been dominated by professors of the German Reich, who often saw their time in Dorpat as a temporary step on the career ladder therefore paid little attention to the multicultural situation, even less to the native language (Tammiksaar 2016). To learn Estonian--this was attempted only briefly even by the thirty-year-old psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin, who had been called to the university in 1886 from the German Empire to Dorpat. This foreign language seemed too difficult to him, neither did he learn much of the official language, Russian. The academic language at the time at one of the leading universities of the northwestern part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century was, to a great extent, still German, a matter that, however, increasingly found refusal on the part of the Russian authorities responsible for education universities, at the latest from the reign of Czar Alexander III (1881-1894). As is well-known, within a few years this was to change--the University of Dorpat was reorganised into the Russian University of Yur'ev in 1893, Russian was established as the language of education in the course of the university reform (Donnert 2007:15, 29-69). The policy of enforced Russification caused difficulties particularly for the professors who came from the German Reich, but it also called up more or less open opposition among the Baltic Germans to the measures taken by the government in St. Petersburg (Donnert 2007:58-73). The language debate at the University of Dorpat expressed a general change of policy towards the Baltic regions on the part of the government in St. …

Founders of pediatric pathology: Roc Kaschula.

Ronald Otto Christian Kaschula, known as Roc, is a man of Africa. He was born in the former Southern Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, in 1935, the eldest of 5 children. His father was a farmer of Western Slav origin whose family immigrated to South Africa in 1858, and his mother was of Afrikaans origin. His parents married in Zimbabwe. He was raised on a farm in the Gutu District in central Zimbabwe. At the age of 5 Roc was homeschooled by his mother for the 1st year. At the age of 6 he went as a boarder to the nearest farm school, which was called the Soti Source Primary School. This was during World War II, when there was a shortage of petrol. In order to conserve petrol the fathers from his area would take turns fetching the 6 local children home 3 times a year for the school holidays. Roc has memories of traveling in his father’s pick-up truck with the other boys; on other occasions he came home in a horse and mule– drawn cart belonging to one of the other fathers. After 4 years at the farm school he was sent as a boarder to schools in Gwelo—the Cecil John Rhodes Primary School, followed by the Chaplin School. Although unknown to him at that time, he watched his future wife play hockey for Girls’ High School, when she traveled with her team from Salisbury to play against Chaplin School farther to the south. Roc developed rheumatic fever and schistosomiasis as a child. His ill health brought him into contact with the family general practitioner, Dr McGladdery, from Ireland, who realized his potential and encouraged the young Roc to spread his wings and study medicine in Cape Town, South Africa. In order to do this, he won a scholarship provided by the State Lottery and was assisted by a government loan. A medical classmate, J.P. van Niekerk, also a former Dean of the Medical Faculty at the University of Cape Town, remembers traveling down to Cape Town with Roc in his Simca car after the university vacation. The trip from Gwelo to Cape Town spanned 2000 km, and it took Roc 2 days to complete the journey. Roc appeared more serious than the rest of his class, but he had a wry sense of humor and was adventurous in a quiet and understated way. He played 2nd-league field hockey for the University of Cape Town Hockey Club, and once he qualified as a doctor, he played social tennis and squash. He was also interested in South African cricket and rugby. Roc completed his undergraduate training in 1959. As an intern, Roc spent 2 months of the following year at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in the surgical wards. He was then advised to spend a year studying pathology prior to returning to Zimbabwe to work off his government loan. He planned to work for the well-known physician Michael Gelfand in Salisbury. However, after a year of pathology, his request to serve Zimbabwe was turned down, as the government medical service wanted medics with basic training in forensic pathology. He remained in Cape Town and completed his MMed in Pathology in 1964. In 1965, he joined the South African Society of Pathologists. The Red Cross Children’s Hospital opened its doors to patients in 1956, when Roc was a 3rd-year medical student. His future wife Sheila had also moved from Zimbabwe to Cape Town and was one of the 1st student nurses to work there as part of her training. The pathology department at Red Cross Children’s Hospital was opened in 1957 by Dave Mackenzie, who played a major role in establishing Roc as a pediatric pathologist. As a 1st-year registrar in pathology, Roc met a glamorous staff nurse, Sheila Darby, in the Urology Department at Groote Schuur Hospital (GSH). They both shared an upbringing in Zimbabwe. They married in 1963 and produced 3 healthy children. Sheila put her nursing career on hold to raise the family until the youngest child, Wendy, began school. She then started working part time at Red Cross Hospital with Professor Cyril Karabus. She took an oncology course in 1986 and spent the last 12 years of her career working in a gynecologic practice providing individually tailored chemotherapy for patients. She retired in 2003. Roc and Sheila’s 2 eldest children followed the family’s medical tradition and studied medicine in Cape Town. Roc’s son is an orthopedic *Corresponding author, e-mail: Helen.wainwright@uct.ac.za Pediatric and Developmental Pathology 17, 413–418, 2014

Perceived barriers to physician–scientist careers among female undergraduate medical students at the College of Medicine – Alfaisal University: A Saudi Arabian perspective

Introduction: At present, only a negligible number of matriculating and graduating female medical students express interest in physician–scientist careers. The aim of this study is to explore the perceived barriers towards pursuing physician–scientist careers by female undergraduate medical students at College of Medicine – Alfaisal University, Saudi Arabia.Methods: An online, anonymous, self-rating survey was administered. The survey assessed students’ perceived barriers towards potential physician–scientist careers by responding to typical 5-point Likert scale statements.Results: One hundred sixteen students (116/171) participated in the survey with a 67.8% response rate. The top three barriers to such physician–scientist careers were greater preference towards patient care than research (75%), lack of conviction as regards merging a fruitful research profession with satisfying motherhood life (52.6%) and paucity of recognizing successful and well-known female physician–scientist role models in the country (48.3%).Discussion: Our results showed that the perceived barriers to physician–scientist careers by College of Medicine – Alfaisal University’s female undergraduate medical students were largely identical to the Western literature with few differences and more influence of cultural reasons. It is crucial for medical educators in Saudi Arabia to work on mechanisms that stimulate female students’ interest in research and resolve all barriers that stand in the face of students towards considering physician–scientist careers.

Dennis James Pudifin

Prof. Dennis Pudifin passed away on 3 December 2013. He was born on 13 May 1934. Dennis qualified from the University of Cape Town in 1957 as a medical doctor. He did his internship at Edendale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg and then trained in the same hospital under Dr John Cosnett, a well-known physician who was skilled in clinical medicine and whose obituary Dennis provided a few months ago.

The monitoring of diabetes mellitus

Changes in clinical practice are often preceded by the gathering of evidence which can take several years. Diabetes mellitus is a prime example of how its management has changed with a mix of advances in laboratory medicine and technology. I was first introduced to the world of the Maillard reaction, Amadori rearrangement and Schiff bases in the early 1980s while working with Professor Sir George Alberti when he handed me a paper on nonenzymatic glycosylation of proteins and their use in diabetes control. Fast forward to the late 1980s when the University of Manchester Department of Medicine at Manchester Royal Infirmary moved from World War II hutments to a new building. The departmental library moved too, and volumes lay haphazardly on shelves. Professor Peter Adams, turning to me, a research fellow, said ‘You look a bit spare, how about sorting out this library?’ Among the journal volumes, there was a historical treasure trove of publications from famous names, but it was here that I first saw a complete collection of the Annals of Clinical Biochemistry starting from volume one. It belonged to the late Jeff Lumb who produced seminal works on vitamin D and calcium metabolism. It was interesting to see the current Annals evolve from the Proceedings of the Association of Clinical Biochemist meetings around the country. The monitoring of diabetes was initially based on urine glucose testing. RD Lawrence, the well-known Chemical Pathologist and Physician, in his 1937 edition of his book gave details of the best times to test for urine glucose and suggested that the Benedict’s test was better than using Fehling’s reagent. For general practitioners, he recommended tests such as the fermentation test for sugars and an iodine test for starch to determine suitability of ‘diabetic’ foods. By 1941, tablets were available to test for urine sugar and over time these morphed into the present day urine dipsticks. In 1962, a semiquantitative method for blood glucose was available. By the 1970s, self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) was being developed and demonstrated to improve glycaemic control. In parallel to these developments, a new way to monitor glycaemic control was being developed. It started very much with Samuel Rahbar’s chance discovery of an unidentified band on electrophoresis in blood from a 67-year-old diabetic woman when he was working on a project looking at haemoglobin variants in Iran. He published his findings in a sister clinical biochemistry journal and confirmed his results in a larger series in the USA. Glycosylated haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) was first described in 1958 by Huisman et al. and was characterized later in 1966, but the diabetes connection was only confirmed by Rahbar in 1969. Further work by Koenig et al. established the clinical utility of HbA1c through a series of papers in the mid 1970s. In the early 1990s, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial confirmed the utility of HbA1c in type 1 diabetes and in the late 1990s, the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study demonstrated

Knowledge Central

Robert Pendergrast, MD, a pediatrician trained in Western Medicine with a master's degree in public health, has written an informative and easy-to-read book. Pendergrast also completed a fellowship at the University of Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, founded by the well-known physician Andrew Weil, MD. Breast Cancer: Reduce Your Risk With Foods You Love lives up to its title by focusing on disease prevention and health promotion. The text is written in clear, lay language and covers all aspects of how a woman can reduce her risk of developing breast cancer. References to scholarly articles supporting Pendgergrast's recommendations and suggestions for further reading are included. The text emphasizes early dietary interventions to be made even before a woman reaches puberty and makes recommendations to be maintained throughout life.

Giovanni Battista Rasario and the 1562–1563 Edition of Galen. Research, Exchanges and Forgeries

AbstractGiovanni Battista Rasario was a well-known physician and translator of Greek classical texts of the Renaissance. In 1562–1563, he edited Galen's Opera omnia, printed by Valgrisi in Venice. This edition is remarkable because of the order of Galen's works, its new translations and also its forgeries. As the preface indicates, other scholars and physicians collaborated with him on this edition. This essay investigates the philological and historical issues of Rasario's edition through an analysis of its preface as well as the dedication letter. Both are rich sources of information on the work accomplished by Rasario, and also bring to light the hitherto unknown relationship between him and his collaborators.

George Cheyne (1671 or 73–1743): 18th-century physician

George Cheyne was a well-known physician with a practice in Bath and London. He was a fat, jovial Scotsman weighing 32 stone at one time and with a great sense of humour who could be classed as one of the characters of the period. His health suffered seriously from eating and drinking too much in taverns with his 'bottle companions' when young, and he spent the rest of his life writing books for the public to help them avoid the problems he had experienced, with a particular emphasis on diet and nervous disorders. His book entitled An Essay on Health and Long Life had particular success. Although often lampooned, he had many famous patients including Beau Nash, Samuel Richardson, The Countess of Huntingdon and Catherine Walpole, the eldest daughter of the Prime Minister Robert Walpole. He was a skilled and caring doctor and health educator, and has been said to have established the agenda for psychiatric epidemiology.