John Benjamin Murphy

John Murphy

John Benjamin Murphy (1857 - 1916) American physician and pioneer surgeon, noted particularly for his contributions to abdominal surgery. William James Mayo, co-founder of the Mayo clinic called him "the surgical genius of our generation." Murphy's live clinical lectures in surgery attracted worldwide audience. He is also known for contributing many eponymous terms to medicine such as Murphy's sign (tenderness in the right hypochondrium on inspiration, felt when the hand is placed over the gallbladder area, indicative of acute cholecystits), Murphy's punch (tenderness on gentle tapping in the costovertebral angle over the renal area at the back in cases of perinephric abscess), Murphy's button (a mechanical device for intestinal anastomosis), and Murphy's drip (device used to administer fluids by proctoclysis in patients with peritonitis). He was one of the first surgeons to actively manage cases of appendicitis by surgery. He is also credited with the first to successfully suture the femoral artery and pioneered bone grafting techniques.

Bernhard Riedel

Bernhard Riedel

Bernhard Moritz Carl Ludwig Riedel (1846 - 1916) German surgeon and pioneer in the surgical treatment of appendicitis and cholecystitis. He was the first surgeon to perform choledochoduodenostomy, which is the anastomosis of the common bile duct to the duodenum. His name is associated with Riedel's thyroiditis (ligneous thryroiditis, struma fibromatosis, or invasive fibrous thyroiditis) which is a rare chronic inflammation of the thyroid gland, resulting in replacement with fibrous tissue, causing difficulty in swallowing and breathing, but mostly with euthyroid status. Riedel's lobe is a tongue shaped hepatic process often found over the gallbladder in cases of chronic cholecytitis. Riedel's tumor is an infrequently used term for chronic pancreatitis. In his old age, he underwent amputation of one of his legs due to atherosclerotic complications, but that didn't stop him from being actively involved in medical activities.

William Allen Sturge

William Allen Sturge

William Allen Sturge (1850 - 1919) British physician and archeologist, who was one of the doctors who first described Sturge-Weber syndrome (also known as encephalotrigeminal angimatosis), a rare congenital nervous and skin disorder, associated with port-wine stains, glaucoma, seizures, mental retardation, and ipsilateral leptomeningeal angioma. His first wife, Emily Bowell, was one of the first women physicians of England. After her death, he married one his nurses. Sturge was a keen collector of archeological specimens, and the later part of his life after retiring from medicine was devoted to archeology. William Allen Sturge had no children.

Ferdinand-Jean Darier

Ferdinand Darier

Ferdinand-Jean Darier (1856 - 1938) French pathologist and dermatologist, considered "the father of modern dermatology in France". His name is associated with many dermatological diseases such as follicular keratosis (an autosomal dominant genetically inherited disease of the skin, also called Darier's disease) and Darier's sign, which is the appearance of  itchy, red & swollen skin lesions after stroking of an area of skin, in subjects suffering from urticaria pigmentosa or systemic mastocytosis. In later age, Darier retired to a small village on the outskirts of Paris and was mayor of the place for ten years. He wrote classic textbooks on dermatology and was involved as the editor of the most famous encyclopedia on dermatology in the french language.

Nikolaus Friedreich

Nikolaus Friedreich

Nikolaus Friedreich (1825 - 1882) French physician and pathologist, whose father and grandfather were also well known doctors in their time. Friedreich is particularly noted for his contributions to neurology, where he was the first to describe a progressive hereditary condition affecting the spinal cord and peripheral nerves, causing ataxia, now known as Friedreich's ataxia. His name is also associated with Friedreich's foot, or pes cavus (high arched foot) as is more commonly known. He also described Friedreich's sign, which is the sudden collapse of previously distended cervical veins during diastole, as a result of adherent pericardium. Along with the anatomist Leopold Auerbach (of the Auerbach's plexus fame) he described the Friedreich-Auerbach disease, a congenital hypertrohic disorder affecting the tongue, ears and facial features.

Dennis Parsons Burkitt

Dennis Burkitt

Dennis Parsons Burkitt (1911 - 1993) Irish surgeon, most famous for his description of the eponymous Burkitt's Lymphoma, which he did when he was working as a surgeon in rural Africa. As a child, Burkitt lost his right eye in an accident, and was later denied employment as a surgeon for this reason. He was also a devout christian and had missionary leanings for his desire to work in Africa. Later in life, he settled in Britain, and made his second significant contribution to medicine by associating the lack of adequate fiber in the diet with many modern diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. His popular book on the subject, Don't Forget Fiber in Your Diet became an international bestseller.

Alois Alzheimer

Alois Alzheimer

Alois Alzheimer (1864 - 1915) German psychiatrist and neuropathologist, credited with the first known description of presenile dementia, which his famous colleague Emil Kraepelin, would later name as Alzheimer's disease. Franz Nissl, another noted German and neuropathologist, was his close collaborator and friend in many of his research activities. Alzheimer also gave a detail description of the histopathological changes involved in general paralysis of the insane, before the causative organism of syphilis was discovered. Alzheimer's descriptions of histopathology in presenile dementia are unparalleled, and so thorough that even to this day his criteria for diagnosis of Alzheimer's stand valid. Alzhemier's prototype patient for the eponymous disease was a woman named Auguste Deter, who was admitted to the hospital where he worked, and died five years later at the age of 56. Autopsy studies on her brain were responsible for the first detailed description of the changes involved in the disease, particularly the presence of senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles.

Johann Lukas Schonlein

Johann Lukas Schonlein

Johann Lukas Schonlein (1793 - 1864) German professor of medicine, one of the first to teach medicine in the local language than Latin. He was among the first to use bedside teaching as a method of learning clinical medicine. Schonlein is credited with giving the present name for two diseases, tuberculosis and hemophilia. Together with his student and pediatrician, Eduard Heinrich Henoch, he was the first to describe the eponymous Henoch-Scholein purpura, the most common vasculitis in children, characterized by the triad of non-thrombopenic purpura, arthritis and abdominal pain. He also discovered the parasitic cause of favus, a ringworm-like disease mainly affecting the scalp.

Heinrich Quincke

Heinrich Quincke

Heinrich Irenaeus Quincke (1842 - 1922) German physician and surgeon, most famous for his introduction of lumbar puncture (also called Quincke's puncture) for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He is also remembered for his study on a wide variety of diseases such as angioedema (Quincke's edema), benign/idiopathic intracranial hypertention (which he called serous meningitis), Quincke's pulse (with redness and pallor under the fingernails, one of the signs of aortic insufficiency), and Quincke's position (supine position with the head lower than the feet). Although Quincke was primarily an internist, he retained an active interest in lung surgery throughout his life. His older brother was the physicist, Georg Hermann Quincke.

Edmund Rose

Edmund Rose

Edmund Rose (1836 - 1914) German surgeon, son of the mineralogist Gustav Rose, and the grandson of the pharmacologist Valentin Rose the Younger. He is remembered for his pathological studies of cardiac tamponade, a term which he coined. He also did research on color blindness and xanthopsia, and the adverse effects of the formerly used anthelminthic Santonin.

Ambroise Pare

Ambroise Pare

Ambroise Pare (1510 - 1590) French surgeon, considered one of the fathers of surgery. He was an innovator in the field of battlefield surgery and the story of how he accidentally created what was perhaps the first clinical trial in the history of medical science is a famous example of his powers of observation and also his compassion towards his patients, for which he was well known. The oft used statement, "I treated but God healed" was first made by Pare. Pare is also known for the experiment where he discredited the then widely held superstitious belief in bezoars as an antidote for poisoning. He also contributed to the development of prosthetic substitutes, such as artificial limbs and eyes.

Friedrich Neufeld

Fred Neufeld

Friedrich Neufeld (1869 - 1945) German physician and bacteriologist, who discovered the various pneumococcal types. In 1900, Neufeld found out the bile solubility of pneumococci. Later using immunological techniques he classified the pneumococci into three types, based on the fact that the bacteria would swell in the presence of the specific anti-sera, which he called the Quellung reaction (from the German for swelling). Neufeld was also a gifted pianist, and he never married and lived with his mother throughout his life. Neufeld is supposed to have died in war torn Berlin in 1945 from Entkraftung (exhaustion).

Frederick Griffith

Fred Griffith

Frederick Griffith (1879 - 1941) British public health scientist, who in 1927 conducted the now famous experiment, which demonstrated the phenomenon of bacterial transformation, then attributed to the presence of a transforming principle, and later proved by Oswald Avery, Colin MacCleod and Maclyn Mccarty as genetic DNA. In what is now known as the Griffith experiment, Frederick Griffith demonstrated conclusively that the non-pathogenic R strain of the pneumococcus can be induced to transform into the pathogenic S strain. It was said that Griffith and his colleague-friend William Scott could do more with a kerosene tin and primus stove than most men could with a palace, because of the fact that the laboratory conditions they worked in were primitive, and yet their research was outstanding. Griffith is supposed to have died along with his friend Scott in his apartment amid an air raid during WW II's London Blitz.

Hans Christian Gram

Hans Christian Gram

Hans Christian Gram (1853 - 1958) Danish bacteriologist, who developed the Gram stain method of differential staining that has become a widely used method for classifying pathogenic bacteria. Gram was also among the first to notice that macrocytes are a characteristic feature of pernicious anemia, which was in fact the subject matter of his doctoral thesis. Gram studied botany before studying medicine and he retained a life long interest in plants. He was a very modest man and remarked on his publication of the Gram staining procedure that it was an imperfect method which he hoped would be improved upon by fellow scientists.

Auguste Ambroise Tardieu

Auguste Tardieu

Auguste Ambroise Tardieu (1818 -1879) The foremost French toxicologist and forensic medical expert of the mid-19th century. He was involved as expert evidence in some of the most notorious murder cases in the history of France. Tardieu was the first to write on child sexual abuse, which he classified as a type of physical assault. Battered child syndrome, now widely recognized, is also known as Tardieu's syndrome in his honor. Tardieu's ecchymosis, subpleural spots of ecchymosis that follow the death of a new born child by strangulation or suffocation, were first described by him in 1859. Besides being an expert in legal medicine, Tardieu also wrote about the terrible working conditions of children in mines and factories, which had a great positive impact in bring about much needed change.

Mathieu Orfila

Mathieu Orfila

Mathieu Joseph Bonaventure Orfila (1787 - 1853) Spanish born French toxicologist, regarded as the founder of forensic medicine. Orfila was one of the first to publish books on toxicology and patterns of decomposition of dead bodies. He was consulted as the foremost toxicologist for evidence in many celebrated murder cases in 19th century France. Orfila was also a physician, but his primary interest was in forensic and legal medicine. One of his most celebrated cases was the sensational Marie LaFarge case in 1840, in which he conclusively proved that arsenic was used as a poison to perpetrate the murder.

Carl von Rokitansky

Carl von Rokitansky

Baron Carl von Rokitansy (1804 - 1878) Outstanding Bohemian pathologist, one of the most important figures in establishing pathology as a branch of medical science. Rokitansy is said to have personally conducted more than 30,000 autopsies in his lifetime. A large number of medical conditions are named after him - Rokitansy-Cushing ulcer (a gastric ulcer caused by elevated intracranial pressure), von Rokitansky syndrome (Budd-Chiari syndrome, occlusion of the hepatic veins, resulting in the calssical triad of abdominal pain, ascites and hepatomegaly), Rokitansky nodule (a teratoma), Rokitansky-Aschoff sinuses (diverticula in the wall of the gall bladder, may be associated with cholecystitis) and Rokitansky's triad (pulmonary stenosis). The very rare Superior mesenteric artery syndrome, characterized by the compression of the third part of teh duodenum between the abdominal aorta and the superior mesenteric artery, was first described by Rokitansky. Rokitansky was also a philosopher (an ardent follower of Schopenhauer) and a liberal politician. The famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow is said to have referred to him as the "Linne of pathological anatomy."

Ingaz Semmelweis

Ingaz Semmelweis

Ingaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818 - 1865) Hungarian physician, described as the "savior of mothers" for his pioneering role in discovering that washing hands (with chlorinated lime) could drastically cut the incidence of puerperal or childbed fever. He is considered one of the most important people responsible for adoption of  antiseptic measures in hospitals, though his theory and suggestions were mostly discarded by contemporaries of his time. Semmelweis died in a mental asylum, probably from septicemia from the infected wounds he had when he was severely beaten up by guards of the institution. Semmelweis reflex, which is a metaphor for the almost reflex like rejection of new ideas because it is against the popularly held belief, is named after him, as he himself suffered extensive rejection and ridicule for his beliefs about puerperal fever.

William Broadbent

William Broadbent

Sir William Henry Broadbent (1835 - 1907) English physician, well known for his contributions to cardiology and neurology. He was the first to describe a form of stroke, now known as Broadbent apoplexy, which is caused by cerebral hemorrhage into the ventricular system. Broadbent law which states the occurrence of unequal distribution of paralysis in ordinary forms of hemiplegia is named after him. Broadbent sign (recession of the left 11th & 12th intercostal spaces in adherent pericardium) and Broadbent inverted sign (pulsations on the posterior lateral chest wall in synchronization with ventricular systole, in cases of gross left atrial dilation) are both named after him. Two of his sons were also eminent physicians. William Broadbent was involved in a notorious criminal case in the 1890s when he was blackmailed by the serial-killer Dr Thomas Neill Cream (also called the Lambeth poisoner) in a letter that threatened to implicate Broadbent for murders. Towards the end of his life, he was made a baronet for his services rendered to the king.

William Smellie

William SMellie

William Smellie (1697 - 1763) Scottish obstetrician, regarded as the father of British midwifery. He wrote a number of famous textbooks on obstetrics which were widely read. In many of his writings, he was helped by his friend and fellow physician-writer, the author Tobias Smollett. Smellie had a successful practice, and he designed new varieties of obstetric forceps, devised a maneuver to deliver the head first in case of breech presentation, and described in detail the mechanism of labor. Smellie was also a painter and musician, pursuits which he enjoyed in leisure after his retirement to the village of Lanark. Smellie and famous contemporary obstetrician William Hunter have recently been accused of conspiring in murdering young pregnant women to obtain bodies for further study of anatomical changes during pregnancy.