This dictionary of medical eponyms gives references to the original publications involved and records wherever possible the first use of the eponym.

5th ed., 1972.

Over 7,000 quotations, arranged under broad subject headings; author and subject indexes.

Second edition as Jablonski’s Dictionary of syndromes and eponymic diseases, Malabar, Fl., Krieger, 1989.

Second edition with E. Scrasia, 1981.

A dictionary, biographical dictionary, and encyclopedia covering selected aspects of the theory, practice and profession of medicine, including history, by the editors and 150 notable contributors. Produced in the style of previous volumes in the Oxford Companion series.

The first printed herbal with illustrations was an illustrated edition of the Herbarium Apulei by Apuleius Platonicus or Pseudo-Apuleius, originally compiled circa 400 CE or earlier, and issued in Rome by the printer and diplomat Johannes Philippus de Lignamine in 1481 or 1482. The earliest surviving manuscript of this text dates from the sixth century. In his dedicatory letter Lignamine stated that he based his edition on a manuscript found in the Abbey of Monte Cassino. In the 1930s F.W.T. Hunger identified a 9th century manuscript as Lignamine's source (codex Casinensis 97 saec.IX). This he published in facsimile, along with the first printed edition, as The Herbal of Pseudo-Apuleius (1935). Regrettably the 9th century manuscript was destroyed in the bombardment of Monte Casino in 1944. 

The first printed edition of Herbarium Apulei contains in addition to its text, a title within a woodcut wreath and 131 woodcuts of plants, including repeats. It gives a multitude of prescriptions, and to make the work more useful, lists synonyms for each plant in Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and other languages, illustrating each with a stylized woodcut. These are the earliest series of printed botanical illustrations, and probably the first formal series of illustrations on a scientific subject, though they were preceded by the technological woodcuts in Valturio's De re militari, 1472.  As a practical and instructive reinforcement of the value of particular plants, snakes, scorpions, and other venomous animals are depicted in the woodcuts of plants that provide relevant antedotes.

Lignamine sought patronage of his editions through the rich and powerful. As a result, two variant issues of the first edition exist with no priority established: one with a dedicatory letter to Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga, another with a dedication to Giuliano della Rovere, future Pope Julius II. Blunt & Raphael, The Illustrated Herbal (1979) 113-14. ISTC No. ih00058000. Digital facsimile of the issue with the dedication to Cardinal Gonzaga from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.

The earliest medical work printed in English. It was published without printer's name or date, but has been attributed to the press of William Machlinia, in London, and estimated to have been published in 1483."Although often attributed in incunable editions to Benedictus Kamisius, Kamintus, Canutus or Kanuti (i.e. Bengt Knutsson, bishop of Västerâs), the author is probably Johannes Jacobi (i.e. Jean Jasme or Jacme) (Wickersheimer)" (ISTC no.  ij00013200). J. F. Payne, "The Earliest Medical Work Printed in English", British Medical Journal v.1 [1480]; May 11, 1889, 1085-86.

Considering the central importance of Galen's writings in medicine from the time he wrote well through the sixteenth and even the seventeenth century, and the need for physicians to make sense of such a large number of his texts, it does not seem surprising that the first printed bibliography of any medical author would be De divisione librorum Galeni by the fourteenth century Italian physician Gentile da Foligno (Gentilis Fulginas) who appears to have been one of the first European physicians to perform a dissection on a human (1341). Gentile's very brief listing was first published in the collective volume, containing over ten short texts, entitled Articella su Opus artis medicinae edited by Franciscus Argilagnes of Valencia, and published in Venice by Hermannus Liechtenstein on March 29, 1483. The Articella was used as a textbook or reference work in the early medical schools. Among the other works published in that volume was the first printing (in Latin) of the Hippocratic Oath. Digital facsimile of the 1483 Articella from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link. ISTC No. ia01143000.

Prologomena in Galenum, in tres partes divisa written by physician, naturalist, and bibliographer, Conrad Gessner (Gesner), and issued in volume one of Cl [audius] Galeni Pergameni  [Opera] Omnia, quae extant, in Latinum sermonem convers published in Basel by Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius in 1562, was the first bio-bibliography. Gessner's study, which covered Greek editions, Latin editions, lost works, writers on Galen and a classified bibliography of Galen's writings, was also Gessner's most developed bibliography. The bio-bibliography occupies 37 unnumbered leaves, following the title to volume 1, and Gesner's two unnumbered leaves of dedication, dated February 1562. (α†^4-6,β†⁶, γ†⁶, A†-C†⁶, D†⁴). To the extent that this is a bio-bibliography we might call it an early partial biography, in that it incorporates what little is known of Galen's life.

Besterman, Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography 2nd ed (1940) 19-20, no. XXIX.

The extent of Claudius Galen's written work was so great that Galen himself felt the need to provide a bibliography organizing and explaining his own writings. He also felt the need to distinguish between works that he had actually written and works that were being falsely attributed to him. About 190 CE  Galen wrote two classified bibliographies of his own writings: Peri ton idion biblion [Latin: De Libris propriis liber, On his own writings] and Peri tes taxeos ton idion biblion [Latin: De ordine librorum suorum liber, On the arrangement of his own writings]. These are the first auto-bibliographical works which survived, and they may also be considered the first bibliographies of any kind which survived after the listings from the library of Alexandria by Kallimachos (Callimachus), which survived only in the most fragmentary form.

"The De libris propriis liber opens with a general introduction, in which Galen refers to the books falsely attributed to him. The main text is divided into seventeen chapters, in which Galen arranges his works under such headings as commentaries, anatomical works, Hippocratic writings, works on moral philosophy, grammar and rhetoric, and so on. This bibliography apparently did not suffice as a guide to the five hundred or so works Galen had put out (many of them now lost), for he added a second one. This is the De ordine librorum suorum liber, of which second bibliography unfortunately only a fragment has come down to us" (Besterman, The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography 2nd ed (1940) 3, nos. I & II).

Galen's bibliographies were first published in print in Part IV, ff.**1-6, of the editio princeps of his collected writings in Greek issued by the heirs of Aldus Manutius and Aldus's father-in-law, Andreas Asulanus, in Venice in 1525. They were revised and improved by Conrad Gessner for an edition published in Basel in 1562.

The oldest surviving copy of Pedanius Dioscorides's treatise on medical botany and pharmacology, De materia medica, is an illuminated Byzantine manuscript produced about 512 CE. Dioscorides, a Greek physician, who may have served in the Roman army, wrote De materia medica in the first century CE.

"Presented in appreciation for her patronage in the construction of a district church in Constantinople, the parchment codex comprises 491 folios (or almost a thousand pages) and almost four hundred color illustrations, each occupying a full page facing a description of the plant's pharmacological properties. . . .

"In the Anicia codex, the chapter entries of De Materia Medica have been rearranged, the plants alphabetized and their descriptions augmented with observations from Galen and Crateuas (Krateuas), whose own herbal probably had been illustrated. Five supplemental texts also were appended, including paraphrases of the Theriaca and Alexipharmaca of Nicander and the Ornithiaca of Dionysius of Philadelphia (first century AD), which describes more than forty Mediterranean birds, including one sea bird shown with its wings both folded and open" (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/aconite/materiamedica.html, accessed 11-22-2008)

The Anicia Juliana codex also contains the earliest illustrated treatise on ornithology. It is one of the earliest surviving relatively complete codices of a scientific or medical text, one of the earliest relatively complete illustrated codices on any medical or scientific subject, and arguably the most beautiful of the earliest surviving scientific codices. It also contains what are probably the earliest surviving portraits of scientists or physicians in a manuscript. See Singer, Charles. "The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages, " J. Hellen. Stud. 47 (1927) 1-52. For further details about this manuscript see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The earliest surviving illustrated surgical codex was written and illuminated in Constantinople for the Byzantine physician Niketas (Nicetas) about 900 CE. It contains 30 full-page images illustrating the commentary of Apollonios of Kition on the Hippocratic treatise On Dislocations (Peri Arthron) and 63 smaller images scattered through the pages of the treatise on bandaging of Soranos of Ephesos. The Apollonian paintings represent various manipulations and apparatus employed in reducing dislocations; each of the images is framed in the Byzantine style in an archway of ornate design.
Apollonios of Kition's commentary on Hippocrates is the earliest surving commentary on any of the Hippocratic writings.

For more details about this manuscript see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The Aderlasskalender for the year 1457, also known as the Laxierkalender, was issued in Mainz, printed in the type of the 36-line Bible, presumably in 1456. It survives in only one incomplete copy in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ISTC No. ia00051700). This is the earliest surviving printed medical or scientific work. 

"Bleeding- and purgation-calendars, which gave details of the lucky and unlucky days on which to bleed or take medicine in a given year, were popular in the Middle Ages. They maintained their popularity with the coming of the printed book. According to Osler, 'forty-six of these bleeding-and purgation-calendars were printed before 1480; one hundred of them before 1501 have been collected. . . .' The Mainz Kalendar for 1457 is much more a purgation-than a bleeding-calendar" (Berry & Poole, Annals of Printing [1966] 13).

In 1465, at the age of 80, Ottoman surgeon and physician Şerafeddin Sabuncuoğlu published in manuscript an illustrated atlas of surgery and dentistry. This was also the first medical textbook written in Turkish, probably the first atlas of pediatric surgery, and the first surgical atlas to show women surgeons. The atlas covers 191 topics in three chapters.

Three copies survived, all different, and all incomplete. One is preserved in Istanbul’s Fatih Millet Library, another at the Capa Medical History Department of Istanbul University, and a third in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. 

The first collected edition of the Hippocratic collection in the Latin translation of Marco Fabio Calvo of Ravenna, dedicated to Pope Clement VII.

"This volume, which preceded the first, Aldine, edition of the Greek text by a year, 'changed what was known of Hippocrates almost beyond recognition.' In the sixteenth century the influence of Galen remained greater than that of Hippocrates, and many aspects of Renaissance Hippocratism remained to be investigated. Nonetheless, it is clear that the name of Hippocrates was invoked by physicians seeking an alternative to aspects of academic Galenism—so that an appeal to an authority even more venerable than Galen on occasion served to justify criticism of current beliefs and practices, if not innovation. Moreover medieval Hippocratic spuria began to be weeded out and the Epidemics are likely to have had some influence upon descriptions of patients and diseases.

"Fabio Calvo's original plan was apparently to publish a printed edition both of the Greek text and of his own Latin translation of the Hippocratic corpus, although as it turned out, only the translation was printed. A scholar of ascetic and frugal character—of which his vegetarianism was considered especially impressive evidence—he embarked on his work on Hippocrates when he was already an old man. As a friend of Raphael, for whom he translated Vitruvius into Italian, and an enthusiast for Roman antiquities, he also undertook the production of an illustrated volume on the urban geography of ancient Rome. Fabio Calvo finished collating and writing out his own copy of the Greek text of the Hippocratic corpus in 1512. His main source was fourteenth-century manuscript—then believed to be of considerably greater antiquity—in his own possession. But he also consulted one of the oldest and most important Hippocratic manuscripts, a twelfth-century codex that has been among the papal books since Charles of Anjou gave it to Clement IV in 1266" (Nancy G. Siraisi, "Life Sciences and Medicine in the Renaissance World," Grafton (ed) Rome Reborn. The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture [1993] 181-83).

The collection, recording, and publishing of medical statistics in the form of Bills of Mortality began in England as a result of the epidemic of plague in 1592-93. The earliest surviving copy of the Bills of Mortality is True bill of the vvhole number that hath died at London. Printed by I.R[oberts]. for Iohn Trundle, and are to be sold at his shop in Barbican, neere Long lane end, [1603] 1 sheet ([1] p.) ;c1⁰. STC (2nd ed.), 16743 1-3. For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

A book on practical chemistry, pharmacology and medicine written for the common reader by French autodidact Marie Meurdrac, La chymie charitable et facile, en faveur des dames, was the first treatise on chemistry written by a woman. Clearly a work that found a wide market, it underwent five editions in French, the last of which was published in 1711, six editions in German, and one in Italian.

For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

This edition of a plague tract by English puritan minister Thomas Vincent was the first medical or biological publication in North America. It was issued by printer Samuel Green, using a press in Cambridge, Massachusetts owned by the president of Harvard, Henry Dunster. Vincent's tract had been published in London earlier in the same year. The Cambridge, Massachusetts printing is known from a single copy preserved at Harvard University. It is also probably the first publication in North America on any subject concerning science. The pamphlet was reissued in 1668 by another Cambridge, Masschusetts printer, Marmaduke Johnson. That 31 page pamphlet is known from a single copy preserved in the American Antiquarian Society.

The first global, historically documented, hierarchically organized parts list of the human nervous system. "This defined vocabulary accurately and systematically describes every human nervous system structural feature that can be observed with current imaging methods, and provides an extendible frame for describing accurately the nervous system in all animals including invertebrates and vertebrates. . . ."

Extensively illustrated in color, with a thorough bibliography of original references.

The most comprehensive history of the subject.

On his death in 1474 Giovanni di Marco da Rimini, physician to Malatesta Novello, bequeathed his library of medical manuscripts to the recently established Biblioteca Malatestiana in Cesena, Italy. Giovanni's library, which was preserved along with the rest of the Bibliotheca Malatestiana, may be the earliest physician's library to have survived intact. The library contains numerous spectacular codices of the expected standard European and Arab scientific and medical authorities, several dating from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, and one (S. XXI.5) dating from the 8th century. Some are finely illuminated. That Giovanni owned several manuscripts from prior centuries suggests that he collected books not only for reference but also out of humanistic and antiquarian interest. The annotated catalogue contains numerous fine color plates.

For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

The first original study of acupuncture published in North America, and one of the earliest American publications on the alleviation of pain. Franklin Bache, great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was the first American to perform original research on acupuncture. 

"As assistant physician at the state penitentiary in Philadelphia, Bache determined in 1825 to test acupuncture on the prisoners whom he was called upon to serve. With the aid of a colleague, he used the needles to treat 12 different prisoners who were suffering from highly painful afflictions: three with muscular rheumatism, four with 'chronic pains,' three with neuralgia, and two with ophthalmia. He also used acupuncture among the prisoners in relieving several lesser pains, including a headache accompanying bilious fever, the head pain of an epileptic, an elastic tumor near the elbow joint, and a dull pain caused by pulmonic inflammation.

"Bache reported varying successes. In summarizing 17 subsequent cases, some of which were not among the prisoners, he noted that seven "were completely cured, seven considerably relieved, and in the remaining three cases, the remedy produced no effect" (Cassedy, "Early uses of acupuncture in the United States, with an addendum (1826) by Franklin Bache, M.D.," Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 50 [1974] 892-906).

As adjunct chief surgeon at the Hôpital St. Louis, Cloquet had an ample number of patients at his disposal, and he was able to test acupuncture on upwards of 300 cases with mostly beneficial results. Cloquet did not publish his researches; it was left to Cloquet's student Dantu, who had assisted him in his acupuncture trials, to present the results of Cloquet's investigations to the public. Lu & Needham, Celestial Lancets, p. 355. Digital facsimile from the  Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé (Paris) at this link.

A greatly expanded version of Boerhaave's Methodus discendi medicinam (1726), resulting in a text perhaps triple or quadruple its original length.  While Boerhaave frequently cited classic authors in his lectures, Haller added extensive bibliographical lists to each chapter, with some entries annotated, resulting in a subject bibliography of useful works to the student, including many 16th century books. As knowledge did not necessarily progress very rapidly at the time, it is unclear whether Haller regarded works published even two centuries earlier as historical classics, or as still useful for their scientific information, or as both. Lindeboom, Bibliographia Boerhaaviana (1959) No. 98.

Various writings of Galen survived through Arabic and Syriac translations rather than the original Greek. In the ninth century the Assyrian Christian physician and translator into Arabic and Syriac Hunain ibn Ishaq (Abu Zayd Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi), compiled a bibliography of his translations into Arabic. Hunain ibn Ishaq also wrote a letter to one of his patrons discussing his translation process. In February 2015 the Al-Islam.org website stated that Hunain, who was known as Johannitius Onan to Latin readers, "translated 95 works of Galen from Greek to Syriac and 99 into Arabic." This would represented a significant percentage of Galen's output. In 1925 G. Bergsträsser published the Arabic text of Hunain ibn Ishaq's bibliographical work from a manuscript he found in Constantinople. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Bilingual text, richly illustrated in color, on the great illustrated works in the history of dermatology.

Issued in 1271 A. H. (1854 CE), this entirely lithographed book introduced Western anatomical illustration to Persian culture. As part of an effort to modernize medical education in Persia, medical textbooks such as Mirza Mohammad-Vali’s Illumination of the Fundamentals of Medicine were written or translated by Persian authors and printed by lithography for publication by the Dar al-Fonun or the Dar al-Tabae, the state printing house established in the 1840s. Mirza Mohammad-Vali, who had been named chief physician of the Persian army in 1852, was also supervisor of the physicians at the Government Hospital and most likely taught at the Dar al-Fonun. Mirza Mohammad’s dependence on Western sources in this early period of modern Persian medical education is evident in his book’s numerous anatomical illustrations, adapted from Vesalius, Scarpa, Fabrici and other European authors. Afkhami, “Epidemics and the emergence of an international sanitary policy in Iran,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 19 (1999): 122-134. Shcheglova, Olimpiada P. “Lithography i. In Persia.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. N.p., 15 Aug. 2009, accessed 04-24-2015). Ebrahimnejad, Medicine, Public Health and the Qajar State: Patterns of Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Iran (2004) 51. For a more detailed annotation see the entry in HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

Dated to the Gupta era, between the 4th and the 6th century CE, the Bower Manuscript, preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was written on birch bark in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit using the Late Brahmi script or Gupta script. The manuscript preserves one of the earliest treatises on Indian medicine (Ayurveda). The medical parts (I-III) may be based on similar types of medical writings antedating the composition of the saṃhitās of Charaka, SuÅ›ruta, and thus rank with the earliest surviving texts on Indian tradition medicine, or Ayurveda. A Sanskrit Index was published in 1908, and a revised translation of the medical portions (I,II,and III) in 1909; the Introduction appeared in 1912. For further information on this manuscript see HistoryofInformation.com at this link. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first translation of any Western medical text into Japanese. "Kaitai Shinsho represented the beginning of two epoch-making developments. First and most directly Gempaku's work set in motion the modern transformation of Japanese medicine, revealing not only many anatomical structures hitherto unknown in traditional [Japanese] medicine, but also and more fundamentally introducing the very notion of an anatomical approach to the body--the idea of visual inspection in dissection as the primary and most essential way of understanding the nature of the human body. Second and more generally, Kaitai Shinsho inspired the rise of Dutch studies (Rangaku) in Japan, thus giving birth to one of the most decisive influences shaping modern Japanese history, namely the study of Western languages and science" (S. Kuriyama, " Between Mind and Eye: Japanese Anatomy in the Eighteenth Century," IN: Leslie & Young [eds.] Paths to Asian Medical Knowledge [1992] 21).

Kaitai Shinsho was drawn largely from Gerard Dieten's 1773 Dutch translation of Johann Adam Kulmus's Anatomische Tabellen (1731) although its Western-style title-age was copied from Valverde's Vivae imagines partium porporis (1566), and the last four anatomical woodcuts were taken from the 1690 Dutch edition of Bidloo's anatomy. Images from Kaitai Shinsho from the website of the National Library of Medicine at this link. For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

A small book, of which only two copies survived, at the British Library and Cambridge University. As first shown by J F Payne in 1896, this work is very similar to a manuscript (MS 564) in the Wellcome Library. This manuscript is a fifteenth century (c.1475) copy of an earlier text written in Middle English around 1392 by an anonymous London surgeon, who copied the work of earlier writers. When first published this text was attributed to the 16th century English physician, surgeon and anatomist Thomas Vicary, who may have once owned the manuscript. Traditionally it was believed that this work had been first published in 1548, though no copies are known to exist. The text was first printed in the English translation of Thomas Geminus's anatomy (1553). In the second, significantly expanded, edition, issued in 1586 the title of the work was changed to The Englishmans treasure, or treasor for Englishmen: with the true anatomye of mans body.  See Duncan P. Thomas, "Thomas Vicary and the anatomie of nans Body," Journal of Medical History, 50 (2006) 235–246. Digital facsimile of the London, 1599 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Het Amboinsche kruidboek or Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue of the plants of Ambon in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, by Georg Eberhard Rumphius, a German-born soldier and botanist employed by the Dutch East India Company, was edited by Dutch botanist and physician Johannes Burman, and posthumously published in Amsterdam in a 6-volume bilingual Dutch and Latin from 1741 to 1750. The work, which provided the basis for all future study of the flora of the Moluccas, described 2000 species. It presented descriptions of the plants and their habitats, and their economic and medicinal uses, and also recorded native plant names in Malay, Latin, Dutch, and Ambonese—and often in Macassarese and Chinese as well.

That this large work was ever published was truly remarkable, considering the hardships that its author faced during its composition, and the complications that occurred after its completion. Even after going blind in 1670 due to glaucoma, Rumphius persisted in the composition of his manuscript with the help of his wife, Suzanna. However, on February 17, 1674 his wife and a daughter were killed by a wall collapse during a major earthquake and tsunami. His son Paul August made many of the plant illustrations and also the only known portrait of Rumphius. Other assistants included Philips van Eyck, a draughtsman, Daniel Crul, Pieter de Ruyter, a soldier trained by Van Eyck, Johan Philip Sipman, Christiaen Gieraerts, and J. Hoogeboom. See The Ambonese Herbal. Georgius Everhardus Rumphius; Translated, Annotated, and with an Introduction by E. M. Beekman. 6 vols., New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Includes reproduction of all 811 original illustrations. Digital facsimile of the complete set of six volumes published from 1741 to 1750 from Botanicus.org at this link.

For further details see the entry at HistoryofInformation.com at this link.

Catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Library of Medicine from October 9, 2002 to July 21, 2003. In May 2015 the website built for the exhibition was available at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/dreamanatomy/.

Particles with the appearance of a virus were detected by electron microscopy in the serum of individuals with Au. These were subsequently shown to be the surface antigen particles, different from the whole virus particles. Blumberg's discovery of the Australia antigen in 1965 may technically be considered the discovery of the hepatitis B virus, but at the time of that discovery its connection with a virus was speculative. 

First description of the hepatitis B vaccine, the first cancer vaccine, US patent 3636191A. Millman and Blumberg discovered that the blood of individuals carrying the hepatitis B virus contained particles of the outside coating of the virus. This coating, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), is not infectious; however, HBsAg can provoke an immune response. To develop a vaccine, Millman and Blumberg invented a method of detaching the coatings from the virus. See B. S. Blumberg, editor, Hepatitis B and the Prevention of Primary Cancer of the Liver. Selected Publications of Baruch S. Blumberg. (2000). See also I. Millman, T. Eisenstein & B. Blumberg, Hepatitis B: The Virus, the Disease, and the Vaccine. (New York: Plenum Press, 1984). 

The most comprehensive history to date.

The first comprehensive history of this subject.

In this work Johannsen coined the term “gene” as the “underlying structure in the organism, that which was transmitted during hybridzation.” He also coined the term "phenotype" to express what is actually observed and can be measured, in contrast to "genotype" that he coined “to express the underlying constitution of the organism from which development of the organism begins" (Brock).

This massive work with 100 plates including 600 images, was the first large-scale investigation of species differences at the molecular level. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Pauling, his crystallographer R. B. Corey, and African-American physicist and chemist H.R. Branson announced the α-helix, a principal structural feature of proteins.

Digital facsimile from the National Academy of Sciences at this link.

This paper reports Franklin's discovery of the existence of DNA in 2 forms, and conditions for readily and rapidly changing from one to the other. Its phosphates were on the outside.” (Maddox 195)  The Watson-Crick model of the double helix was in large part derived from her work. The striking Photo 51 of the B form of DNA that was influential in convincing Watson that the form was helical, appeared as an illustration to her and Gosling’s paper, with no suggestion that Watson had seen it, let alone been inspired by it. She appended also her comment that the photograph ‘is strongly characteristic . . .of a helical structure. See Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA (2002) 211-212)  Various authorities have suggested that it was Rosalind Franklin, rather than Maurice Wilkins, who should have shared the Nobel Prize with Watson and Crick for the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA; however, Franklin died before the prize was awarded, and the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.

Illustrated with some engraved plates printed in two colors, some in three colors, and some also hand-colored--an early example of color-printing in a medical book. After ten years as a midwife in Paris, Madame du Coudray was hired by King Louis XV to travel across France to better train rural midwives.There were political motivations for this; Louis wanted to boost a “declining” population, and more subjects also meant more capable soldiers. Unlike Queen Charlotte of England who chose William Hunter as the royal obstetrician, Louis appointed du Coudray, a woman, to train women. Madame du Coudray became the national midwife in 1759, earning 8,000 livres a year—equal to that of a decorated military general. Her book underwent numerous editions.

Du Courray invented an obstetrical manikin, or obstretrical "machine," a cloth covered fetus qnd female pelvis and womb that she used to demonstrate complicated birthing technics. This was analogous to the "machine" also invented around the same time in Scotland by William Smellie. Digital facsimile of the 1777 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

Hahnemann's first presentation of his new system of medicine. English translation in The Lesser Writings of Samuel Hahnemann, Collected and Translated by R. E. Dudgeon, London: W. Headland, 1851, 195-357.

Hahnemann's first published homeopathic book, his first title on Materia Medica and Repertory, and the first collection of drug provings on the healthy body. The book lists the health effects of 27 drugs in common use as recorded in the medical literature along with Hahnemann's own observations from taking the drugs himself. 

Also published as a monograph, Berlin: In commission bei L. W. Wittich. 1805.  

Known as the Materia Medica Pura. Second edition, 6 vols, 1822-27. For the third edition, Hahnemann only wrote vols. 1 & 2 (1830-33). 

Second edition, 6 vols., 1835-39.

With contributions by Richard Hughes of England; Constantine Hering of Philadelphia; Carroll Dunham of New York; Adolph Lippe of Philadelphia and others. This massive work is almost a complete record of all provings and poisonings recorded to date.

Foreward by Hahnemann. Translated into English from the second German edition by C. M. Roger, as A Systematic, Alphabetic Repertory of Homoeopathic Remedies. Part First. Embracing the Antisporic, Antisyphilitic, and Antisycotic Remedies, Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafel, 1900.

Frequently reprinted. "Bönninghausen's Therapeutic Pocketbook of 1846 was the first homeopathic repertory to grade individual remedies by their strength of relationship with each symptom, and each other. This so-called von Bönninghausen (or von Boenninghausen)-method has remained in use until the present day. He proposed that disparate symptoms associated with a remedy could be grouped as a single overarching tendency, hence the importance of generalities and modalities in his system of case analysis," (Wikipedia article on Clemens Maria Franz von Bönninghausen, accessed 05-2015). The work was translated into English during its first year of publication as Therapeutic Pocket-Book for Homoeopathic Physicians, to be Used at the Bedside of the Patient, and in Studying the Material Medica Pura, Munster: Coppenrath, 1846. The translation was reprinted, and edited by Charles J. Hempel, New York: William Radde, 1847. 

Used as a reference work for the general practice of homeopathy.  Digital facsimile of the second edition (1916) from the Hathitrust at this link.

The history of homeopathic medicine in America, covering the difficulties within the homeopathic ranks and teachings.

A series of lectures given at the London Hahnemann Hospital between 1852 and 1853, presenting an early account of Hahnemann’s life and the development of homeopathy. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first publication on homeopathy issued in the United States— a translation of Hahnemann's essay. The 24-page pamphlet was dedicated to David Hosack of New York, and gratuitously distributed to leading physicians throughout the country, but it was written in such imperfect and obscure English that few were able to understand it. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Medical Heritage Library at the Internet Archive at this link.

A standard work on the development of homeopathy and the life of Hahnemann. Digital facsimile of the 1922 German edition from the Hathitrust at this link. The work was translated into English as Samuel Hahnemann, His life and Work, Based on recently discovered State Papers, Documents, Letters, &c. by Marie J. Wheeler and W.H.R Grundy, and edited by J. H. Clarke and F. J. Wheeler, London: Homoeopathic Publishing Company, 1922. Digital facsimile of the English translation from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first book on domestic homeopathy published in the United States. The names of the medicines are not given, but are referred to by numbers. Digital facsimile from the National Library of Medicine at this link. 

An early American homeopathic title on The Effects of Snake Poison Comparatively Arranged for Therapeutic Use.  Hering assumed an analogy between snake venom and bacterial toxins. He drew his work from provings and testing of several snake venoms.

Hering was called the “father of American homeopathy.” His 10-volume work is a record of confirmed symptoms that Hering and his colleagues observed over 50 years of practice.  

1349 pp. In his Divided Legacy: the Bacteriological Era (1994) Harris Coulter commented, “The most remarkable contribution to Homoeopathic practice since the death of Constantine Hering (1880) was the Repertory of J. T. Kent.”  Digital facsimile of the second, revised edition of 1908 at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Forms Vol. 3 of History of Dental Surgery, edited by Charles R. E. Koch. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

The Greenfield implant system, also known as the Greenfield crib or basket, was one of earliest sucessful dental implants. It consisted of an irioplatinum implant attached to a gold crown. The implant lasted for a number of years, and showed evidence of what would later be called osseointegration.

The first French dermatologic book illustrated with photographs. Originally issued in fascicules, 1867-68. The first edition includes 49 or 50 albumin photographs; second edition, entitled Clinique photographique des maladies de la peau (1872) includes 60 albumin photographs. Hand-coloring was applied to some of the photographs in the first two editions. Montmeja took the photographs for all three editions, and supervised the hand-coloring of the photographs in first edition. The third edition (1882) contains photographs reproduced through the woodburytype process. Digital facsimile of the first edition from BnF Gallica at this link.

The first dermatologic publication illustrated with photographs.

The first medical text in Spanish to use photographs as illustrations. Includes 17 lithographed plates (12 chromolithographs) and 3 original photographs (2 hand-colored). Giné y Partagás was a surgeon, dermatologist, and psychiatrist. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Lefoulon introduced the term "orthodontia" in this book, and went into more detail and recorded more notable advances in the practice of orthodontics than any of his predecessors.

"Lefoulon introduced treatment without extraction. He had the happy idea of treatment both by an elastic excentric force (lingual spring) and by an elastic concentric force (vestibular spring). He was the first to obtain transversal maxillary expansion" (Dechaume & Huard, Histoire illustrée de l'art dentaire, p. 76). Hoffmann-Axthelm, History of Dentistry, pp. 364-65. Weinberger, History of Orthodontics 253-71. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

The first atlas of dental pathology, a "beautifully made, richly illustrated work" (Hoffmann-Axthelm, p. 399). "In these plates we find numerous anomalies of the teeth and jaw in delicate, clear drawings. . . . Occasionally certain parts (vessels etc.) are tinted in red. Macroscopic and microscopic images are equally represented" (Goldschmid, p. 206).

A pioneering study of diseases and death caused by lightning and electricity. Jellinek specialized in the study of electrical accidents and their prevention. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

First edition in English of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic (Huangdi Neijing,) , the most important ancient text in Chinese medicine as well as a major book of Daoist theory and lifestyle. According to leading scholars it was written between the late Warring States period (475-221 BCE) and the early Han period (206 BCE–220 CE).The text is structured as a dialogue between the Yellow Emperor and one of his ministers or physicians, most commonly Qíbó, but also Shàoyú.  

A history of homeopathy in America, including its demise during the early to mid-20th century.

A comparison of mortality rates in institutions and private practice between homeopathic and other modes of treatment. Digital facsimile from The Medical Heritage Library at the Internet Archive at this link.

Sanger and colleagues developed methods for rapid sequencing of long sections of DNA molecules. Sanger’s method, and that developed by Gilbert and Maxam, made it possible to read the nucleotide sequence for entire genes that ran from 1000 to 30,000 bases long. With S. Nicklen and A. R. Coulson. This paper is available from the PNAS at this link.

Sanger and colleagues sequenced the first whole DNA genome—that of bacteriophage phi-X174 (5375 bases) 

Sanger and colleagues sequenced the entire genome of bacteriophage lambda using a random shotgun technique. This was the first whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequence. 

Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) for DNA sequencing. By Adams, M.D., Kelley, J.M., Gocayne, J.D., Dubnick, M., Polymeropoulos, M.H., Xiao, H., Merril, C.R., Wu, A., Olde, B., Moreno, R., Kerlavage, A.R., McCombie, W.R., and Venter, J.C.

Completion of the first genome of a multi-cellular organism—C. elegans. 

"C. elegans is a free-living nematode which is widely used as a model organism. The C. elegans genome has been fully sequenced and is therefore a useful tool to test new approaches in helminth genome sequencing.

Discovery of the first type II restriction enzyme (HindII). With T. J. Kelly. Smith shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans.

Also: Smith H.O., Wilcox, K.W. , "A restriction enzyme from Hemophilus influenzae. I. Purification and general properties," J. Mol. Biol. 51 (1970) 379-391.

Nathans showed that the restriction enzyme discovered by Hamilton Smith cleaved SV40 DNA into 11 specific pieces. Nathans and his student Kathleen Danna wrote:

"The availability of pieces of SV40 DNA from specific sites in the molecule should be helpful for the analysis of the function of the SV40 genome. For example, when the order of fragments in the genome is known, it should be possible to map “early” and “late” genes and those genes that function in all transformed cells. It may also be possible to localize specific genes by testing for biological activity, e.g., T-antigen production or abortive transformation. If specific deletion mutants become available, the analysis of restriction enzyme digests may . . . [allow] mapping of such mutants. Comparison of restriction endonuclease digests by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis has also provided a new method for detecting differences in DNA . . . It should [also] be possible to . . . obtain quite small, specific fragments useful for the determination of nucleotide sequence.” Quoted by Daniel Dimaio, "Daniel Nathans 1928-1999," Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences 79 (2001) 7.

Nathans shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology with Hamilton Smith and Werner Arber for the discovery of restriction enzymes.

Initial draft sequence of the human genome from the publically financed project, involving the coordinated efforts of 20 laboratories and hundreds of people around the world. The full text is available from Nature at this link.

Nature reprinted the paper in hardcover with supplementary material as Carina Davis & Richard Gallagher (eds.)  The Human Genome. Foreward by James D. Watson. (Houndgroves, Basingbroke, Hampshire, England & New York: Palgrave, 2001.)

Initial draft sequence of the human genome by Venter and the staff at Celera Genomics. The full text is available from Science at this link.

Sanger and colleagues developed the random shotgun method to prepare templates for DNA sequencing. With A. R. Coulson, B. G. Barrell, A. J. H. Smith & B. A. Roe.

The “PaJaMo” experiment of PArdee, JAcob, and MOnod “broke the impasse in Crick and Brenner’s comprehension of how information in the sequence of bases in DNA came to be expressed as a sequence of the amino acids in protein, and thus led to the theory of the messenger and the solution of the coding problem” (Judson 390).

This was recorded definitively in “The Genetic Control and Cytoplasmic Expression of ‘Inducibility’ in the Synthesis of β-galactosidase by E. coli,” J. Mol. Biol. 1 (1959) 165-78.

This paper proposed two general principles: 1) The Sequence Hypothesis: “The order of bases in a portion of DNA represents a code for the amino acid sequence of a specific protein. Each ‘word’ in the code would name a specific amino acid. From the two dimensional genetic text, written in DNA, are forced the whole diversity of uniquely shaped three-dimensional proteins” , and 2) The Central Dogma: “Information is transmitted from DNA and RNA to proteins, but information cannot flow from a protein to DNA. This paper “permanently altered the logic of biology” (Judson). 

Crick's first published statement of The Central Dogma appeared in the September 1957 issue  of Scientific American, 197, No. 3, 188-203, based upon his famous "Central Dogma" lecture given in September 1957 (G-M 13097). 

Gamow, a physicist, invented the concept of a genetic code. This brief 1-page paper, published in the February 13, 1954 issue of Nature was the first specific positive response to Watson and Crick's structure of DNA. Where others, notably Max Delbruck, had reacted for all their excitement by suggesting ways the double-helix structure could be tested and might have to be modified, Gamov took it as given and set it to work. The importance of Gamow's idea, Crick later said, "was that it was really an abstract theory of coding, and was not cluttered up with a lot of unnecessary chemical details." Gamow disentangled the problem, stating that if genes were DNA, and DNA was two chains side by side, formed of anly four kinds of nucleotides and joined by the paired bases, "It follows that all hereditary properties of any living organism can be characterized by a long number....written in a four-digital system, and containing many thousands of consecutive digits." This Gamow called "the number of the beast" (Judson, Eighth Day of Creation (1996) 256).

See also:, Gamow, "Possible mathematical relation between deoxyribonucleic acid and proteins," Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab: Biologiske Meddelelser, 22 (1954) 1-13, and Gamow & Martynas Yčas, "Statistical correlation of protein and ribonucleic acid composition," Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (USA), 41 (December,1955) 1011-1019, and Gamow, "Information transfer in the living cell," Scientific American, 193 (December 1955) 70-77.

This work about the physical basis of natural phenomena influenced the young James D. Watson and others. The book was a popularization of ideas developed by Max Delbrück in his paper with Timofeeff-Ressovsky in 1935. See No. 254.1.

Sydney Brenner pointed out a fundamental mistake in Schrödinger’s understanding of how genes would operate:

“Anyway, the key point is that Schrödinger says that the chromosomes contain the information to specify the future organism and the means to execute it. I have come to call this ‘Schrödinger’s fundamental error.’ In describing the structure of the chromosome fibre as a code script he states that. ‘The chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are code law and executive power, or to use another simile, they are the architect’s plan and the builder’s craft in one.’ [Schrödinger, p. 20,]. What Schrödinger is saying here is that the chromosomes not only contain a description of the future organism, but also the means to implement the description, or program, as we might call it. And that is wrong! The chromosomes contain the information to specify the future organism and a description of the means to implement this, but not the means themselves. This logical difference was made crystal clear to me when I read the von Neumann article [Hixon Symposium] because he very clearly distinguishes between the things that read the program and the program itself. In other words, the program has to build the machinery to excute itself" (Brenner, My Life, 33-34).

Discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism. This discovery illuminated “the process by which cells make available the energy to drive their manufacturing processes” (Judson, p. 245). Lipmann shared the 1953 Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology. In his Nobel Lecture (1953) he spoke “very tentatively” of the first clues that “may foreshadow” extension of his concept to proteins and nucleic acids.