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.

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.

John Hughes Bennett

John Bennett

John Hughes Bennett (1812 - 1875) English physician, physiologist and pathologist. He was the first to describe leukemia (then known as leukocythemia) as a blood disorder. He was also the first to describe pulmonary aspergillosis and also to advocate the use of cod liver oil as a therapeutic agent. He was one of the foremost medical educators of his day, and is considered the father of physiological education for his efforts to bring practical experimental lessons to the medical classroom. He was also one of the first to use the microscope for teaching. He was an opponent of blood letting practices, and advocated for the admission of women to medical schools.

Chales-Edouard Brown-Sequard

Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard

Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard (1817 - 1894) Widely traveled physician, born in Mauritius, for whom is named Brown-Sequard syndrome, which he was the first to describe. Brown-Sequard syndrome is a loss of sensation and motor function as a result of lateral hemisection of the spinal cord, resulting in paralysis and loss of sensation to touch & vibration on the same side of the injury and loss of sensation to pain and temperature on the other side. Brown-Sequard was an important contributor to the physiology of the nervous system and he was also one of the first to work on the physiology of the spinal cord. He also postulated the existence of substances released into the bloodstream causing effects on distant organs, chemicals which are now known as hormones. He also showed that the adrenal glands were essential for life, demonstrating that their removal resulted in quick death. In his old age, he created much controversy by claiming that injection of extracts from guinea pig testicles would prolong life, which was derisively termed Brown-Sequard elixer by fellow scientists. Brown-Sequard lived in poor and desperate circumstances for most of his life, immensely dedicated to his work, as shown by an example when he swallowed the vomits of cholera patients to investigate the effects of laudanum on the disease. He was also a modest man and extremely honest, once he rejected 200 pounds taking only his ordinary fee instead, and at another time declined an offer of ten thousand pounds to treat a boy in Italy saying that he was not the qualified person to treat the case. Brown-Sequard travelled widely in his lifetime, holding faculty positions in France, America and the UK. He also founded a number of influential academic journals, was a pioneer in the treatment of epilepsy - the first to suggest the use of bromide to control the disease, and has been called the father of endocrinology and organotherapy ("The Method of Brown-Sequard").

Agostino Bassi

Agostino Bassi

Agostino Bassi de Lodi (1773 - 1856) Italian entomologist, who preceded Louis Pasteur in propounding that diseases can be caused by minute living organisms. He made this assertion from his observations of the muscardine disease (mal de segno) of the silkworm, which is caused by a parasitic fungus. He was related to the famous biologist Spallanzani, and the physicist Laura Bassi, who is famous for being the first woman teacher in Europe. His discovery of the cause of muscardine disease and methods for control were responsible for rescuing the silkworm industry in Europe which was almost abandoned due to the ravages of the disease. Bassi won instant recognition and fame for this particular work. Louis Pasteur was much influenced by his work, and had his portrait hung in his office.

Schaffhause Trio

Wepfer, Peyer and Brunner were referred to as the Schaffhause trio since they lived, worked and made contributions together in the field of anatomy, pathology, and medicine at the town of Schaffhause in Switzerland.


Johan Jakob Wepfer (1620 -1695) Swiss physician, pathologist and pharmacologist, chiefly remembered for his work on the vascular anatomy of the brain, and his study of cerebrovascular disease. He was the first to hypothesize that the effects of stroke are caused by bleeding or blockage of arteries in the brain. He wrote a classic treatise on stroke, Historicae apoplecticolrum. Wepfer also made important contributions in the field of toxicology, and suggested that mercury, arsenic and antimony, which were widely used in medicine during his time, were harmful to the body than curative.

Peyer's Patches

Johan Conrad Payer (1653 - 1712) Swiss anatomist and physician, who first described the eponymous Peyer's patches, aggregations of lymphoid tissue in the ileum of the small intestine. Peyer's patches are supposed to be responsible for immune surveillance and antigen presentation & sensitization. Though important in immunity, hypertrophy of Peyer's patches has been implicated in idiopathic intussusception and a heightened susceptibility to prion diseases. Salmonella infection also targets these lymphoid nodules in the small intestine. Peyer also wrote an important work on veterinary medicine.

Joseph Conrad Brunner (1653 - 1727) Swiss anatomist, and son in law of Wepfer. He is remembered for the tubuloalveolar glands in the submucosa of the duodenum that are named after him. Two disorders are associated with these Brunner's glands, hyperplasia and adenoma.