A letter about Jean Fernel by Charles Sherrington and the mind-brain connection.

In 1940 during the early phase of the Nazi aerial assault on Britain, the English neurophysiologist, C.S. Sherrington, age 83 years, had just published a philosophical work, , and was researching the writings of Jean Fernel, a 16th century French physician Sherrington's study of Fernel stemmed from a common interest they shared in the association between the mind and the brain.

A letter from Alexis Carrel concerning the preantibiotic treatment of war wounds: The Carrel-Dakin solution.

The morbidity and mortality of soldiers injured during the First World War stemmed in large part from infections of battle wounds. Preventing and treating such infections was a major challenge for the medical corps. Alexis Carrel, a French-American surgeon, advocated irrigating open wounds with a hypochlorite solution (the Carrel-Dakin solution) to prevent the growth of bacteria contaminating them.

William Osler and the "fixed period" of creativity.

In 1905, William Osler was the pre-eminent physician in American medical circles but was unknown to the general public. The latter suddenly learned of him through damning newspaper accounts of his address announcing his retirement from the Johns Hopkins Medical School. In it Osler mentioned two "fixed ideas" he held-(1) that most major advances in civilization have been made by men under age 40 (the "fixed period") and (2) that those over 60 should retire because they create little of significance and sometimes stifled the initiatives of younger colleagues.

Pro-Angiogenesis Therapy and Aging: A Mini-Review.

Apart from major illnesses and chronic afflictions, the elderly experience lesser ailments, such as muscle weakness, cold intolerance, and transient memory lapses. Physical signs in the aged include wrinkled skin and the slow healing of skin abrasions. These ailments and signs are grouped together because they may be due in part to an age-linked, waning microcirculation.

An amended history of tissue culture: Concerning Harrison, Burrows, Mall, and Carrel.

The origin of tissue culture is commonly dated to 1907 and credited to Ross Harrison at Hopkins Medical School. But an unpublished letter from the 1942 offers a different interpretation and gives priority to Montrose Burrows with important contributions for the development of cell culture by Franklin Mall at Hopkins and Alexis Carrel at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City. The early development of tissue culture is reviewed and its applications in modern biology and medicine are briefly outlined.

The Tissue Culture Laboratory of Dr. George Otto Gey 60 yrs ago as recalled by a former student.

George Otto Gey was a pioneer in tissue culture, having introduced the roller drum, the HeLa cell line, and the use of human fetal cord serum and beef embryo extract. During his career (1920s-1960s), the field of tissue culture was in its infancy and not yet dependent upon commercial biological supply houses. While the early techniques of cell culture have been greatly improved upon, of historical interest may be personal observations of the Gey Tissue Culture Laboratory, Johns Hopkins Medical School, as recalled by a medical student working there in the 1950s.

The Role of Capillaries in the Lesser Ailments of Old Age and in Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia: The Potential of Pro-Therapeutic Angiogenesis.

Apart from chronic diseases (arthritis, diabetes, etc.), old age is generally characterized by three lesser ailments: muscle weakness, minor memory lapses, and cold intolerance. This trio of complaints may have a common, underlying cause, namely, the age-associated reduced microcirculation in muscles, brain, skin, and elsewhere in the body.

A therapeutic approach for senile dementias: neuroangiogenesis.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related senile dementias (SDs) represent a growing medical and economic crisis in this country. Apart from cautioning persons about risk factors, no practical, effective therapy is currently available. Much of the recent research in AD has been based on the amyloid cascade theory.

Joseph Hersey Pratt (1872-1956): An early proponent of cognitive-behavioural therapy in America.

The treatment of mild psychoneuroses in America began shifting in the 1950s from Freudian psychoanalysis to various forms of psychotherapy that do not delve into patient's subconscious. Some of the new approaches were termed cognitive, behavioural or cognitive behavioural therapy and in America were practised notably by Joseph Wolpe, Albert Ellis and Aaron T Beck. Modern psychiatric literature makes little mention of two prior innovators in this area - the French neurologist Jules Dejerine and his Boston disciple Joseph H Pratt.

Medicus Petrus Hispanus (c1205-77 Peter of Spain): a XIII century Pope and Author of a Medieval Sex Guide.

Petrus Hispanus was the only practicing physician ever to become Pope (1276-77). By all accounts he was an interim choice when rival French and Italian Cardinals could not elect one of their own nationality. Although not clearly responsible for any major political actions by the Church, Petrus was famous for several centuries after his death because of his secular writings - a text on logic (Summulae logicales) and a handbook on medicine (Thesaurus pauperum).

Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) - an unfinished life.

The fame of Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) rests on his anatomy text, De humani corporis fabrica, regarded as a seminal book in modern medicine. It was compiled while he taught anatomy at Padua, 1537-1543. Some of his findings challenged Galen's writings of the 2c AD, and caused De fabrica to be rejected immediately by classically trained anatomists.

Neuroangiogenesis: a vascular basis for Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline during aging.

Angiogenesis directs development of the brain's microcirculation during antenatal and postnatal development, but its role later in life is less well recognized. I contend that during senescence a reduced cerebral capillary density accounts in part for the vascular cognitive impairment observed in many older persons and possibly for some forms of Alzheimer's disease. I propose that neuroangiogenesis is essential throughout adult life for maintaining the microcirculation of the cerebral cortex and elsewhere in the brain and that it commonly declines with old age.

The curious death of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840): the case for the maidenhair fern.

Constantine Rafinesque, a French émigré to America in the early 19th century, was a forerunner of Charles Darwin and a zealous field naturalist who identified thousands of new species of plants and animals. His career was controversial in part because of his unfocused ambition to gain scientific recognition. In his later years he published in many areas apart from biology.

The priority dispute over the function of the lymphatic system and Glisson's ghost (the 18th-century Hunter-Monro Feud).

Basic Immunology has had only two significant public priority disputes. The first began in the late 1650s and concerned the recognition of the peripheral network of vessels which collects lymph throughout the body. The publication of this major anatomical discovery prompted a priority feud discussed in a previous paper.

Osler and the black corpuscles: profiles of three early students of phagocytosis.

The discovery of phagocytosis is associated indelibly with Elie Metchnikoff, who coined the term, but more than 30 persons had observed the phenomenon (or inferred its existence) before Metchnikoff came to dominate the field. Two of these early investigators were William Osler and George Miller Sternberg. Osler recognized carbon particles within the phagocytes of patients with miner's lung and carried out experiments in kittens.

Immunology's first priority dispute--an account of the 17th-century Rudbeck-Bartholin feud.

Modern immunology has been notably free of public disputes over credit for major discoveries in this discipline. But the early recognition of the lymphatic system witnessed two examples of heated priority feuds. The first in the 17th-century concerned the greater anatomical organization of the system, while the second in the 18th-century concerned its function.

The Osler slide, a demonstration of phagocytosis from 1876 Reports of phagocytosis before Metchnikoff's 1880 paper.

Recently at the Medical Historical Museum of McGill University, Dr. Rick Fraser discovered a microscope slide prepared in 1876 from the lung of a patient with pneumoconiosis. Photomicrographs show the presence of coal dust particles in alveolar cells.

The Secret Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates (and the Origin of the American Medical Association's Principles of Medical Ethics).

This paper relates the neglected history of an idealistic, secret medical fraternity which existed briefly in Lexington, Kentucky, during the first half of the 19th century. It was created for students in the Medical Department at Transylvania University, the fifth US medical school, founded in 1799. One goal of the fraternity was to counter the widespread dissension and often violent quarrels among doctors that characterized American medicine of that period.

Osler and the infected letter.

The spread of infectious agents through the mail has concerned public health officials for 5 centuries. The dissemination of anthrax spores in the US mail in 2001 was a recent example. In 1901, two medical journals reported outbreaks of smallpox presumably introduced by letters contaminated with variola viruses.