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PubMed1989

Charles Dotter: interventional radiologist.

Coronary and peripheral vascular diseases are leading causes of death and disability throughout the world. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty has had a profound influence on the treatment of these diseases, resulting in salvage of thousands of limbs without surgery. The concepts and innovations of Charles Dotter, inventor of angioplasty and widely proclaimed father of interventional radiology, affect the practices of all physicians engaged in the treatment of coronary and peripheral vascular disease. The highlights of his life and research are described herein.

Angioplasty, Balloon↗

PubMed1997

Origins and early reception of clinical dialysis.

Several medical inventors in Europe and North America brought the artificial kidney (hemodialysis) to practical usefulness in the late 1940s, but there were very few early successes. It was used at first for only desperate cases of acute renal failure. Renal authorities in the 'metabolic' tradition favored newly quantified metabolic and dietetic therapies. In part, this resistance to dialysis represented reasonable skepticism about results, but also preferences concerning what constituted 'science' within medicine.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1992

Treatment of advanced bladder cancer by submucosal injection of methotrexate in the anorectal area.

In 1988, Shafik et al. presented their first attempt to apply cytostatics in the treatment of pelvic malignancies. Experimentally and clinically, they studied the anal route for administration of methotrexate, and their first results showed that higher concentration of drugs can be achieved in the bladder wall compared to that in serum. Since December 1988, we have been engaged in experimental and clinical investigations of the possibilities this method might reveal. Experiments with animals have proven that submucosal injection of the cytostatic agent does not induce local changes. The clinical trial on 20 patients with tumors of stage T2-T4 has not shown side effects, either local or systemic. The treatment was well tolerated by the patients. Anorexia has been reported in 3, elevated temperature in 2 and leukopenia in 4 of 20 patients. Complete response has been documented in 3 (15%), partial response in 3 (15%), stabilization in 5 (25%) and progression of the disease in 9 (45%) of the patients. Mean duration of remissions was 10.3 months (range 9-12). The distribution of submucously injected contrast medium into the anorectal area has been studied by computerized tomography in 4 of the patients. Although our results do not support the original estimates of the inventors of the method, its ease of application, the possibility of out-patient administration and negligible side effects are sufficient arguments for performing further experimental and clinical studies.

Administration, Rectal↗

PubMed1975

The omnicardiogram Study of a proposed method for detecting coronary heart disease in an asymptomatic population.

A proprietary, commercial technique has been proposed by its inventor as a noninvasive method of detecting subtle electrocardiogram abnormalities, not apparent by conventional means. To study the ability of the omnicardiogram to detect latent coronary heart disease in an asymptomatic population, 200 normal electrocardiograms from the Framingham Study cohort were analyzed by this technique. One-half of these consisted of the last normal electrocardiogram prior to development of clinical coronary heart disease. The omnicardiogram showed a higher degree of sensitivity than did the electrocardiogram to coronary heart disease, indicating an increased risk of myocardial infarction in this group. The low specificity of this technique as indicated by the large percentage of false positives shows that the omnicardiogram is not diagnostic of coronary heart disease in asymptomatic persons with normal electrocardiograms.

Computers↗

PubMed2004

Building artificial life for play.

Playthings are often engineered to replicate the character of real organisms. In the past, inventors lavished great expense on their lifelike automata, their constraints being typically related to the mechanical technology they employed and the amount of time and effort they were able to commit to the enterprise. The devices that are currently produced are usually intended for the mass market. The cost of production therefore is a major concern, even though the technology is more sophisticated and highly automated than in the past. Consequently, toymakers and engineers, as well as artists, of the past and present alike have had to think abstractly about living systems in order to construct their simulacra economically. This essay examines a number of lifelike toys to discover the properties of real organisms that their designers have attempted to recreate. That we, as users of these devices, so readily recognize in them a degree of lifelikeness demonstrates the extent to which intuition may sway our intellectual reasoning about real biology. As a result, an innovative toymaker or artist is able to manipulate us to zoomorphize even the most extreme abstractions--at least momentarily--despite our rational reluctance to accept the trickery.

Artificial Intelligence↗

PubMed1995

The polymerase chain reaction in the diagnosis and evaluation of pulmonary infections.

One of the most heralded developments in basic science to reach clinical application in recent years has been the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This technique of DNA amplification, which has already had an enormous effect on the way in which molecular biology research is done (and whose inventor, Kary Mullis, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993 in recognition of the extraordinary impact of PCR technology on scientific research generally), was quickly appreciated by clinical investigators as having potentially widespread utility in the early diagnosis of a wide range of disorders, such as inherited illnesses and infectious diseases (1). This Commentary will review the application of PCR to the diagnosis and evaluation of respiratory infections. The underlying principle guiding this Commentary is that the ideal diagnostic test for respiratory infectious disease should have the following characteristics: high sensitivity and specificity, high positive and negative predictive value, rapid turnaround time, ease of performance, reliability across samples (the same sample tested repeatedly should give the same result) and across those performing the assay (different laboratories performing the assay on the same specimen will report the same result), and low cost. It is against these criteria that PCR will be measured in this review.

AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections↗

PubMed1987

Bicentenary of Sir John Forbes (1787-1861).

This year is the bicentenary of the birth of the distinguished Scottish physician, Sir John Forbes, famous for his translation of the great French medical classic, De L'Auscultation Médiate by R.T.H. Laennec, the inventor of the stethoscope.

Auscultation↗

PubMed1995

The life and times of James Jeffray, Regius Professor of Anatomy, University of Glasgow 1790-1848.

James Jeffray, Regius Professor of Anatomy at Glasgow University from 1790 -1848, worked at a time when the only legal support of material for dissection was the bodies of hanged criminals. The Napoleonic Wars created a large demand for anatomical teaching and Jeffray saw the height of the body-snatching era. At Glasgow University, Jeffray supervised the establishment of the Hunterian Museum, negotiated a separate Chair of Botany and was a prime mover in founding the Botanic Gardens. The fetal circulation was a special interest and he is remembered as the inventor of the chain saw, which he designed from a watch chain for use in excision of diseased joints in an effort to prevent amputation.

Anatomy↗

PubMed2005

A bogus Benjamin Rush quote: contribution to the history of pharmacracy.

Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), the 'father' of American psychiatry, is perhaps best known as the inventor of the 'tranquilizing chair'. In recent decades, political and psychiatric activists have attributed a quotation to him in which he allegedly warned: 'To restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science.' The source of this quotation cannot be found, and Rush's remarks about 'medical despotism' are inconsistent with the body of his work. Other examples are cited to illustrate the thesis that false attributions, used to support and advance particular ideological causes, are remarkably resistant to efforts at correction.

History, 18th Century↗

PubMed2006

The emergence and diffusion of DNA microarray technology.

UNLABELLED: The network model of innovation widely adopted among researchers in the economics of science and technology posits relatively porous boundaries between firms and academic research programs and a bi-directional flow of inventions, personnel, and tacit knowledge between sites of university and industry innovation. Moreover, the model suggests that these bi-directional flows should be considered as mutual stimulation of research and invention in both industry and academe, operating as a positive feedback loop. One side of this bi-directional flow--namely; the flow of inventions into industry through the licensing of university-based technologies--has been well studied; but the reverse phenomenon of the stimulation of university research through the absorption of new directions emanating from industry has yet to be investigated in much detail. We discuss the role of federal funding of academic research in the microarray field, and the multiple pathways through which federally supported development of commercial microarray technologies have transformed core academic research fields. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Our study confirms the picture put forward by several scholars that the open character of networked economies is what makes them truly innovative. In an open system innovations emerge from the network. The emergence and diffusion of microarray technologies we have traced here provides an excellent example of an open system of innovation in action. Whether they originated in a startup company environment that operated like a think-tank, such as Affymax, the research labs of a large firm, such as Agilent, or within a research university, the inventors we have followed drew heavily on knowledge resources from all parts of the network in bringing microarray platforms to light. Federal funding for high-tech startups and new industrial development was important at several phases in the early history of microarrays, and federal funding of academic researchers using microarrays was fundamental to transforming the research agendas of several fields within academe. The typical story told about the role of federal funding emphasizes the spillovers from federally funded academic research to industry. Our study shows that the knowledge spillovers worked both ways, with federal funding of non-university research providing the impetus for reshaping the research agendas of several academic fields.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2006

The Society for Clinical Trials opposes US legislation to permit marketing of unproven medical therapies for seriously ill patients.

The proposed Bill S.1956 is a bad law. Wide early access to minimally tested treatments cannot be expected to lead to better or more compassionate care of the seriously ill patient. The long history of medicine is replete with treatments that initially seemed promising to patients, doctors, and especially to their own inventors, but which careful study revealed to be worthless or harmful. We understand the desperate plight of these patients and the importance of hope for them and their families. However, although the proposed law is portrayed as an effort to help patients in desperate need of treatment, in fact its effect would be to undermine the system of scientifically valid testing of new drugs that has been a bulwark of health care for several decades. The effect of the law would be to provide many more possible choices of treatment but much less information upon which to make the choice. Patients would be very unlikely to end up receiving an effective treatment. They would be much more likely to receive useless or possibly harmful treatments in the last days of their lives. The Society for Clinical Trials strongly opposes this legislation.

Clinical Trials as Topic↗

PubMed1994

Creativity and psychopathology. A study of 291 world-famous men.

BACKGROUND: This investigation sought to determine the prevalences of various psychopathologies in outstandingly creative individuals, and to test a hypothesis that the high prevalence of mental abnormalities reported in prominent living creative persons would not be found in those who had achieved and retained world status. METHOD: The family background, physical health, personality, psychosexuality and mental health of 291 famous men in science, thought, politics, and art were investigated. The membership of the six series of scientists and inventors, thinkers and scholars, statesmen and national leaders, painters and sculptors, composers, and of novelists and playwrights was determined by the availability of sufficiently adequate biographies. Extracted data were transformed into diagnoses in accordance with DSM-III-R criteria, when appropriate. RESULTS: All excelled not only by virtue of their abilities and originality, but also of their drive, perseverance, industry, and meticulousness. With a few exceptions, these men were emotionally warm, with a gift for friendship and sociability. Most had unusual personality characteristics and, in addition, minor 'neurotic' abnormalities were probably more common than in the general population. Severe personality deviations were unduly frequent only in the case of visual artists and writers. Functional psychoses were probably less frequent than psychiatric epidemiology would suggest, and they were entirely restricted to the affective varieties. Among other functional disorders, only depressive conditions, alcoholism, and, less reliably, psychosexual problems were more prevalent than expected in some professional categories, but strikingly so in writers. CONCLUSIONS: Similar findings have been reported for living artists and writers, and this suggests that certain pathological personality characteristics, as well as tendencies towards depression and alcoholism, are causally linked to some kinds of valuable creativity.

Creativity↗

PubMed2006

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802): neurologist.

Erasmus Darwin was the founder of evolutionary biology, a renown poet, an inventor, and a general medical practitioner. Erasmus Darwin wrote specifically about the evolutionary and phylogenetic development of the nervous system, neuroembryology, psychiatric illness (including delusions and depression), and electrical therapy for childhood hemiplegia. He conducted experiments in neuro-ophthalmology and wrote about color vision, afterimages, the blind spot, and visual memory.

England↗

PubMed2005

Long-term effects of the Meniett device in Ménière's disease: the Western Australian experience.

OBJECTIVES: Transtympanic pressure has been shown to influence endolymphatic hydrops. As endolymphatic hydrops plays a key role in Ménière's disease, a few studies, undertaken by the inventors, manufacturers and associates of the Meniett device, have demonstrated positive short-term effects of transtympanic pressure treatment via the Meniett device in medically intractable Ménière's disease. The aim of our study was to independently investigate the long-term efficacy and safety of transtympanic pressure treatment in the management of recalcitrant vertigo in Ménière's disease. DESIGN: Cross-sectional case study. SETTING: Tertiary referral centre. PARTICIPANTS: Eighteen patients with Ménière's disease, suffering from medically intractable symptoms. All patients in the study had Ménière's disease according to the criteria of the Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS: Outcome and severity of symptoms were assessed, using the six-point functional scale and the vertigo visual analogue scale (VAS), as recommended by the Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium of the American Academy of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery. Changes of pure tone average thresholds and vestibular calorics before and during treatment with the Meniett device were recorded. The mean follow-up time was 18 months. RESULTS: Twelve out of 18 patients showed significant improvement in the functional score and in the VAS. Five patients displayed an audiometric improvement, out of which three patients showed a pertaining significant hearing gain of more than 10 dB; the remainder had stable hearing levels. Of six patients without any improvement, four had previous invasive surgery for their Ménière's disease and two had previous vestibular ablation with gentamicin. No changes in vestibular function were noted. There were no complications during the treatment with the Meniett device. CONCLUSION: According to this independent study, the Meniett device seems to be a minimally invasive, non-destructive treatment tool, which can reduce vertigo and associated functional handicap in Ménière's disease. These effects are maintained up to 18 months after treatment so far. Previous surgical or chemical vestibular ablation procedures may adversely influence the effect of the Meniett device.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Historical experiments predating commercially available computed tomography.

Computed tomography (CT) was a revolution in radiology. Commercially available CT scanners appeared in 1972, a joint effort between the EMI Company, Atkinson Morley's Hospital, London and the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The name of Sir Godfrey Hounsfield will always be associated with these developments. Like most developments in science the breakthrough came by standing on the shoulders of giants and many experiments can, with the curious wisdom of hindsight, be considered precursors to CT. Gabriel Frank's patent in 1940 showed apparatus for back-projection CT and Takahashi developed equipment in the 1940s for reconstructing from a sinogram; in both cases using an optical "computer". A medical CT scanner was reportedly constructed in 1957 in Kiev. Transmission CT was performed by Kuhl in 1965. Cormack built an experimental scanner in 1963. Oldendorf identified what was needed for successful CT as early as 1960. Throughout the 1960s a host of independent workers were busy on the mathematical problems of reconstructing from projections with both medical scanning and non-medical applications in mind. Experiments in early emission tomography influenced the development of CT. With imagination one can even see how close "classical" tomography, as started even before 1920, came to the realization of CT. The pioneering British radiographer Watson stands out from a galaxy of inventors. The lecture at Radiology and Oncology '91 in Brighton was a thumbnail sketch of the origins of radiological CT. A fuller story is told elsewhere (Webb, 1990).

History, 20th Century↗

PubMed2001

Smelling in color: a rainbow of possibilities.

A sensor that detects dangerous odors better than the human nose may be able to "smell" dangerous air pollutants, soil contaminants, insecticides, food pathogens, biological warfare neurotoxins, and body odors associated with illness and disease. Called "smell-seeing" by its inventors, the method relies on color changes that occur in an array of vapor-sensitive dyes in response to exposure. By measuring the color change pattern, the researchers can identify a contaminant both qualitatively and quantitatively. This newest version of an artificial nose is simple, fast, and inexpensive. It can also eliminate the subjectivity associated with the human sense of smell and the perception of odors.

Air Pollutants↗

PubMed2005

The remarkable vision of Robert Hooke (1635-1703): first observer of the microbial world.

Robert Hooke played important roles in the early development of the Royal Society of London. As Curator of Experiments of the Society, he became a pioneering microscopist, prolific inventor, astronomer, geologist, architect, and an effective surveyor of the City of London following the Great Fire of 1666. Hooke's Micrographia (1665) revealed the microscopic structures of numerous biological and inorganic objects and became an important source of information for later studies. Aside from the body of detailed observations reported and depicted in Micrographia, the Preface is in itself an extraordinary document that exhibits Hooke's fertile mind, philosophical insights, and rare ability to look into the future.

Animals↗

PubMed1983

Phase shift in red and green counterphase flicker at high frequencies.

When balanced red and green lights are alternated more than 20 times per second, the perceived flicker can be reduced by advancing the green flicker about 10 degrees of the red-green cycle. The required advance for least flicker is greatest at retinal illuminances around 1000 td and frequencies between 30 and 35 Hz. A model that predicts tuning at this frequency exists, but the tuning curve that is predicted is broader than that observed. A modified model is left for future publication. Meanwhile, other empirical properties of the advance required by green over red are described. In addition to the intensity dependence of this phase shift, we describe its dependence on intensity balance between red and green. Also, the intensity balance turns out to depend on the frequency being used, in contrast to the independence expected by Ives, the inventor of heterochromatic flicker photometry.

Color Perception↗