{"title":"Thomas Lewis Mackesy (1790-1869): Eminent surgeon of Waterford.","authors":"Rhianna van Riel-Jameson, Max Cooper","doi":"10.1177/09677720241311205","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720241311205","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Thomas Lewis Mackesy (1790-1869) was an Irish surgeon celebrated in his home city. Born in Waterford in Ireland, he apprenticed under his father, an apothecary, before undertaking the London College of Surgeons examination in 1809. Successful, he trained as an assistant surgeon before joining the Royal Artillery. After several years, he returned to his native city, where he worked at the Leper and Fanning hospitals as a surgeon, and married the first of three wives in 1813. Sadly, she died only five years later, leaving two young sons. In subsequent years, Mackesy continued practising medicine but extended his scope to politics and social causes. He became mayor of Waterford in 1841 and worked as both a magistrate and Poor Law guardian, focusing on public health. He received recognition for his work, being the first doctor outside Dublin to be elected president of the RCSI (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland). Trinity College Dublin also awarded him an honorary degree, earning him the title M.D. honoris causa. Thomas Lewis Mackesy died on the 8th of April 1869 from complications of kidney disease. A blue plaque commemorating his life and influence can today be found on Lady Lane, in Waterford city.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"102-108"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13100326/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143408743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Panagiota Karatsi, Maria Myronidou Tzouveleki, Antonios Karpouzis, Niki Papavramidou
{"title":"Xavier Landerer (1809-1885): A pioneer of the study of thermal waters in Greece.","authors":"Panagiota Karatsi, Maria Myronidou Tzouveleki, Antonios Karpouzis, Niki Papavramidou","doi":"10.1177/09677720251316982","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251316982","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Xavier Landerer was a distinguished German Professor of Natural Sciences who studied the composition of thermal waters and promoted their medicinal use in Greece during the nineteenth century. His authorial work was really innovative on a worldwide scale and he is considered a pioneer in studying thermal waters and disseminating their beneficial properties.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"184-186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143382685","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the medical practices in the Vijayanagar Empire: Insights from historical research.","authors":"Siddhant Mishra, Santosh Kumar Yadav, Manish Vyas","doi":"10.1177/09677720251320436","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251320436","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>During the Middle Ages, one of the most renowned South Indian kingdoms, the Vijayanagar Empire, saw significant developments in a number of fields, including healthcare and medicine. The empire's cosmopolitan nature, with numerous ethnic groups and cultural exchanges, helped to shape a rich medical culture influenced by Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and local native medical practices. The Vijayanagar Empire's medical practices left a lasting legacy that influenced further developments in South Indian medicine. By studying this era of medical history, we gain helpful insights into the intersection of culture, society and healthcare, which contributes to our grasp of the evolution of medicine in the Indian subcontinent. Specialization in certain diseases or practices was prevalent, and the physicians enjoyed a high status and respect in society.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"109-115"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143995982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Francis Sibson (1814-1876): A serial specialist.","authors":"Henry Connor","doi":"10.1177/09677720251316348","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251316348","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In a diverse career Sibson performed some of the earliest saline infusions for cholera, some of the first experiments with curare and its possible use in rabies and he was among the first British authors to distinguish between typhoid and typhus. He published on respiratory physiology and mechanisms of respiration and on the anatomy of the chest and abdominal viscera including the changes caused by movement and disease. He investigated the use of ether and chloroform to treat neuralgia, probably practised surgical anaesthesia and sat on a commission investigating the safety of chloroform. His interests later changed to cardiac disease, especially pericarditis, endocarditis and aortic aneurysms. His membership of medical societies led to an involvement in medical politics, such as the conditions of service of army and poor law doctors, the sale of arsenic, reform of the membership of the General Medical Council and <i>The Nomenclature of Disease</i> which was an early and very successful attempt at the classification of diseases. He was invited to give evidence to a Royal Commission on vivisection and sat on several government committees and enquiries including the siting and design of infectious diseases and Poor Law hospitals and the Metropolitan District Asylums Board.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"115-126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13100328/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143996515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Royal Naval nursing in Scotland and Ceylon in the Second World War: Official histories, memoirs and a representative microhistory.","authors":"Katherine M Venables","doi":"10.1177/09677720251374150","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251374150","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Second World War was an important, but under-researched, transitional period for naval nursing. This article describes one sister's experience and sets it against the narrative in official histories and wartime memoirs and art. Margaret Wallace, a Scot from the skilled working class, was within the demographic that the service's Victorian founders hoped would be attracted. She worked in representative wartime facilities: the largest British auxiliary naval hospital, a secret multi-national naval base, the Headquarters of South East Asia Command in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Haslar, the iconic Royal Naval hospital. She experienced many of the defining characteristics of military nursing during the war: revolutions in medical practice including near-magical cures by the new antibiotics, an urgent need for tri-service and cross-national working which upset centuries of tradition, the censorious attitude of some regulars to civilians drafted in as temporary officers and social mixing in the twilight of Empire.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"143-152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13100330/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144957331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lancereaux revisited once again.","authors":"James R Wright, Lynn McIntyre","doi":"10.1177/09677720251342015","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251342015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"187-188"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144258231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lay tests, storytelling and anecdotes: Lessons from a London gentleman's comparison of treatments for leg ulcers (pre-1726).","authors":"Max Cooper, Carl Fernandes, Sarah Cooper","doi":"10.1177/09677720251412757","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251412757","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"91-93"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145911849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The surgeon José Pascual y Prats (1854-1931): Corporatism, press, bibliography and medicine during the Spain of the Restoration.","authors":"Lluís Coromina Verdaguer","doi":"10.1177/09677720251366764","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251366764","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The aim of this article is to investigate the professional, corporate and scientific career of the Girona surgeon José Pascual y Prats (1854-1931). His work at the Provincial Hospital of Santa Catalina in Girona and as dean of the provincial charitable medical corps should be highlighted, as should his presidency of the province's medical associations, and his creation and direction of the bulletins of both organisations, as well as his promotion of the <i>Index Medicus Hispanus</i>. Therefore, his biography allows us to consider three fundamental aspects of medical science during the Spain of the Restoration: associations, press and bibliography. At the same time, he maintained epistolary contacts with his family and friends, as well as with different representatives of the social elites of Girona and the Catalan and Spanish medical oligarchy. In short, Pascual was the most important physician of this period in the city and one of the most remarkable health professionals of contemporary Catalonia.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"127-134"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144957344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Karl Jarmer (1898-1983): Dentist and first professor of dentistry in Dresden.","authors":"Felix Marschner","doi":"10.1177/09677720251317826","DOIUrl":"10.1177/09677720251317826","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Karl Jarmer was the first professor of dentistry at the Medical Academy in Dresden (Germany). This article chronicles his life, his professional challenges, and the impact of his work, illustrated by theses, articles, books, and original sources from the archives of the Dresden University of Technology's Medical Faculty. His career encompassed a range of experiences, from running a private practice in Stettin to specializing in oral surgery. After serving in the First World War, his academic journey began with the completion of his dental license and doctorate in 1921. Later, he worked at the universities of Greifswald and Kiel before being appointed to the Chair of Dentistry in Dresden in 1954. His appointment triggered a professional rivalry with Johann Alexander Vogelsang, a key figure in Dresden's maxillofacial care, due to conflicting views on academic leadership. Jarmer made significant contributions to the development of dental education in Dresden and played an important role in shaping Dentistry at the young Medical Academy Dresden. Jarmer remained active in academic circles until his retirement in 1963. He died in 1983.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"94-101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143382679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ni Dashi and immunotherapy for epidemic haemorrhagic fever in China, 1950s-1990s.","authors":"Hanyu Luo, Chadwick Wang","doi":"10.1177/09677720261433092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09677720261433092","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ni Dashi (, 1925-2022) was a Chinese microbiologist who developed an immunotherapy for epidemic haemorrhagic fever (EHF) in China between 1985 and 1988. Since 1950s, China had been plagued by this disease, urging scientists to dedicate themselves to virus isolation and the exploration of specific treatments. Among them, Ni and his team led the isolation of the virus in China. Building on this breakthrough, Ni developed a transfer factor derived from virus-immunized porcine spleens to modulate patients' immune responses and alleviate their symptoms. This essay reawakens recognition of Ni's significant yet overlooked contribution to the development of immunotherapy for EHF.</p>","PeriodicalId":16217,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medical Biography","volume":" ","pages":"9677720261433092"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2026-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147729338","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}