John W. Holter (April 1, 1916 - December 22, 2003)

John W. Holter
(April 1, 1916 - December 22, 2003)

John W. Holter (April 1, 1916 - December 22, 2003) was a toolmaker working for the Yale and Town Lock Company Stamford Connecticut. His son Charles Case "Casey" Holter was born on November 7, 1955 with a severe form of spina bifida. Shortly after birth he contracted meningitis, which caused his head to expand rapidly. His parents were told that he had developed "water on the brain" or hydrocephalus.

As luck would have it Holter's son was being looked after in Philadelphia, where the surgeons Nulsen and Spitz had already demonstrated that a ventricle-to-atrium diversion system could work. What they needed was an inexpensive and practical valve that could control the direction of the flow and maintain normal cranial pressure.

A chance discovery showed Holter, after a failed attempt in which a young boy died[citation needed], that he could use a silicone one-way valve (pressure sealing). After a medically suitable grade of Silastic (silicone and rubber) was found, the device was patented[3], and John Holter set up a company, Holter-Hausner International, to manufacture the cerebral shunts.

Although he was unable to save his son Casey, his design, the Spitz-Holter valve (also called the Spitz-Holter shunt) continues to help millions around the world since the late 1950s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holter

Arne Torkildsen (1899 - 1968)

Arne Torkildsen 

(1899 - 1968) 

Arne Torkildsen (1899 - 1968) was a Norwegian neurosurgeon. He described the surgical technique of ventriculocisternostomy (a predecessor of today's endoscopic third ventriculostomy), which is also called "Torkildsen's operation".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Torkildsen

Kenneth Blackfan (September 9, 1883- November 1941)

Kenneth Blackfan

September 9, 1883- November 1941)

Kenneth Blackfan was an American pediatrician, born on September 9, 1883 in Cambridge, New York, and died November 1941.

Blackfan began his medical studies at the Albany Medical School of Union University, New York, graduating at the age of only 22. Initially, he returned home to join his father in general practice. He became bored with this, however, and four years later in 1909 he returned to Albany seeking fresh challenges. Encouraged by Richard Pearse, he decided to do some pediatric training in the Founding Hospital in Philadelphia.

He did a residency under John Howland starting in 1911 at Washington University in St. Louis, and in 1913 Blackfan followed Howland to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Here he worked with Walter Dandy (described of the Dandy-Walker syndrome) on internal hydrocephalus. Walker and Blackfan discovered where cerebrospinal fluid originated by tracking dye injected into the cerebral ventricle of a dog.

Blackfan eventually became an associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1918, then moved to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and finally to Harvard University where he became director of clinical services at Children's Hospital and professor of pediatrics. He occupied this position until his death in 1941.

At Harvard, his main interests were nutrition and hematology. He was Louis K Diamond’s mentor, and together they wrote the first collection of photographs of microscopic appearances of the Blood in Childhood disease. In 1938, they described Diamond-Blackfan syndrome. He also mentored Sidney Farber the father of modern cancer chemotherapy. The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, next door to Children's Hospital in Boston is partially named after Sydney Farber.

Blackfan died of lung cancer in 1941, age 58, at the height of his career.

Children's Hospital in Boston is on Blackfan Street which is named after Blackfan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Blackfan

Heinrich Irenaeus Quincke (26 August 1842 - 19 May 1922)

Heinrich Irenaeus Quincke 

(26 August 1842 - 19 May 1922) 

Heinrich Irenaeus Quincke (26 August 1842 - 19 May 1922) was a German internist and surgeon. His main contribution to internal medicine was the introduction of the lumbar puncture for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. After 1874, his main area of research was pulmonary medicine.

He was perhaps the first (1882) to recognize angioedema which is often referred to as "Quincke's edema."Quincke's pulse", with redness and pallor seen under the fingernails, is one of the signs of aortic insufficiency. "Quincke's puncture" is a somewhat outdated eponym for lumbar puncture, used for the examination of the cerebrospinal fluid in numerous diseases such as meningitis and multiple sclerosis. In 1893 he described what is now known as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, which he labeled "serous meningitis".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Quincke 

John Cheyne (February 3, 1777, - January 31, 1836)

John Cheyne 

(February 3, 1777, - January 31, 1836) 

John Cheyne (February 3, 1777, Leith, Scotland - January 31, 1836, Buckinghamshire, England) was a British physician, surgeon and author of monographs on a number of medical topics. He was one of the people to identify Cheyne-Stokes respiration.

The son of a surgeon, he had grown up around medical practice and was able to enter Edinburgh University at the age of 15, graduating as a doctor at 18 years of age. He joined the army and worked as a surgeon with an artillery corps. He was present at the Battle of Vinegar Hill. Cheyne rejoined his father's practice four years later in 1799.

Ten years later, Cheyne moved to Dublin and in 1811 began working at the Meath Hospital. He also taught war medicine and was appointed Physician General to British forces in Ireland in 1820.

Cheyne wrote a number of books, including Essays of Diseases of Children in 1801. He was also the author of an early treastise on the larynx in 1809, Pathology of the Membrane of the Larynx and Bronchia.

He retired to England in 1831 following a course of ill health and died at his country estate a few years later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cheyne_(physician)

Robert Whytt (1714 – 1766)

Robert Whytt 

(1714 – 1766) 

Robert Whytt (1714 in Edinburgh – 1766) MA St Andrews, 1730; MD Reims 1736; MD St Andrews, 1737; FRCPE Edinburgh, 1738 and President, 1763-6; Professor of Theory of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 1747; FRS, 1752 Whytt studied medicine at Edinburgh, Paris and Leyden.

Topics he worked on include:

unconscious reflexes

tubercular meningitis

urinary bladder stones

hysteria

He was the physician to King George III in Scotland from 1761. In 1763, he became president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. His work focused mostly upon diseases of the nervous system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Whytt 

John Freind (1675 – 26 July 1728)

John Freind 

(1675 – 26 July 1728) 

John Freind (1675 – 26 July 1728),FRS, English physician, younger brother of Robert Freind (1667–1751), headmaster of Westminster School, was born at Croton in Northamptonshire.

He made great progress in classical knowledge under Richard Busby at Westminster, and at Christ Church, Oxford, under Dean Aldrich, and while still very young, produced, along with Peter Foulkes, an excellent edition of the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes on the affair of Ctesiphon (orator).

After this he began the study of medicine, and having proved his scientific attainments by various treatises was appointed a lecturer on chemistry at Oxford in 1704. In the following year he accompanied the English army, under the earl of Peterborough, into Spain, and on returning home in 1707, wrote an account of the expedition, which attained great popularity.

Two years later he published his Prelectiones chimicae, which he dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. Shortly after his return in 1713 from Flanders, whither he had accompanied the British troops, he took up his residence in London, where he soon obtained a great reputation as a physician.

In 1716 he became fellow of the college of physicians, of which he was chosen one of the censors in 1718, and Harveian orator in 1720. In 1722 he entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Launceston in Cornwall, but, being suspected of favoring the cause of the exiled Stuarts, he spent half of that year in the Tower.

During his imprisonment he conceived the plan of his most important work, The History of Physic, of which the first part appeared in 1725, and the second in the following year. Included in this volume was a paper by Dr. Henry Levett, also written in Latin, addressing the treatment of smallpox. In the latter year Freind was appointed physician to Queen Caroline, an office which he held till his death.

A complete edition of his Latin works, with a Latin translation of the History of Physic, edited by Dr John Wigan, was published in London in 1732.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Freind