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.

Richard Asher

Richard Asher

Richard Asher (1912 - 1969) British physician, best known for his succinct and refreshingly provoking articles on various medical subjects. He famously said that many clinical notions were accepted because they were comforting rather than because there is any evidence to support them. He described and named the Manchausen syndrome and his article on myxedematous madness bought into light the influence of the thyroid on brain function to a large number of physicians. He is also remembered for arguing that Pel-Ebstien fever is an example of a condition that exists only because it has a name. His anothologies on medical writing, particularly Talking Sense, are still described as one of the finest examples of medical writing. Asher suffered from depression in later life and reportedly died from suicide.

Alcmaeon of Croton

Alcmaeon of Croton

Alcmaeon of Croton (6th century BCE) One of the most eminent natural philosophers and medical theorists of ancient Greece, his Concerning Nature is perhaps the oldest surviving Greek text on medicine. Alcmaeon was one of the foremost early anatomists who advocated dissection of human bodies, and he was the first to site the brain as the seat of the mind and that all senses in some way or the other owe their origin to it. Alcmaeon was also responsible for the theory that health and disease are the result of maintenance or disruption of equilibrium between various opposing humors in the body.