Herman Boerhaave was a Dutch botanist, chemist, Christian humanist, and physician of European fame. He is regarded as the founder of clinical teaching and of the modern academic hospital and is sometimes referred to as "the father of physiology," along with Venetian physician Santorio Santorio (1561–1636). Boerhaave introduced the quantitative approach into medicine, along with his pupil Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) and is best known for demonstrating the relation of symptoms to lesions. He was the first to isolate the chemical urea from urine. He was the first physician to put thermometer measurements to clinical practice. His motto was Simplex sigillum veri: 'Simplicity is the sign of the truth'. He is often hailed as the "Dutch Hippocrates".
Moses Mendelssohn was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas the Haskalah, the 'Jewish enlightenment' of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is indebted.
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician and scientist, now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing hands with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of midwives' wards. He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian chemist and Romantic musical composer of Georgian ancestry. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Mighty Handful", a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating earlier Western European models. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor. Music from Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet.
Paracelsus, born Theophrastus von Hohenheim, was a Swiss physician, alchemist, and astrologer of the German Renaissance.
The year 1775 in science and technology involved some significant events.
John Brown was a Scottish physician and the creator of the Brunonian system of medicine.
Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, also known as Isaac Israeli the Elder and Isaac Judaeus, was one of the foremost Jewish physicians and philosophers living in the Arab world of his time. He is regarded as the father of medieval Jewish Neoplatonism. His works, all written in Arabic and subsequently translated into Hebrew, Latin and Spanish, entered the medical curriculum of the early thirteenth-century universities in Medieval Europe and remained popular throughout the Middle Ages.
Alexander Monroprimus was a Scottish surgeon and anatomist. His father, the surgeon John Monro, had been a prime mover in the foundation of the Edinburgh Medical School and had arranged Alexander's education in the hope that his son might become the first Professor of Anatomy in the new university medical school. After medical studies in Edinburgh, London, Paris and Leiden, Alexander Monro returned to Edinburgh, and pursued a career as a surgeon and anatomy teacher. With the support of his father and the patronage of the Edinburgh Lord Provost George Drummond, Alexander Monro was appointed foundation Professor of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh. His lectures, delivered in English, rather than the conventional Latin, proved popular with students and his qualities as a teacher contributed to the success and reputation of the Edinburgh medical school. He is known as Alexander Monro primus to distinguish him from his son Alexander Monro secundus and his grandson Alexander Monro tertius, who both followed him in the chair of anatomy. These three Monros between them held the Edinburgh University Chair of Anatomy for 126 years.
The Brunonian system of medicine is a theory of medicine which regards and treats disorders as caused by defective or excessive excitation. It was developed by the Scottish physician John Brown and is outlined in his 1780 publication Elementa Medicinae. It drew on the theories of his teacher William Cullen, but whereas Cullen set out to create a systematic nosology of diseases, Brown argued for a unified model in which all disease was related to stimulation.
Benjamin Bell of Hunthill FRSE FRCSEd is considered to be the first Scottish scientific surgeon. He is commonly described as the father of the Edinburgh school of surgery, or the first of the Edinburgh scientific surgeons. He published medical works of significance, notably his surgical textbook A System of Surgery which became a best seller throughout Europe and in America. His treatise on venereal disease was one of the early works that suggested syphilis and gonorrhea were different diseases, a hypothesis which was not accepted by mainstream medicine until many decades later. Bell's main contribution to surgical practice was his adage 'save skin', which led to improved rates of wound healing in operations like mastectomy and limb amputation. He was also an early advocate of routine pain relief in surgery.
John Rutty (1697–1775) was a Dublin Quaker physician and naturalist born in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. He was the author of many texts including A methodical synopsis of the Mineral Waters of Ireland (1757) and An Essay towards the Natural History of the County of Dublin (1772). After his death his spiritual diary was published, and the botanist William Henry Harvey named the genus Acanthaceae Ruttya after him.
Karl Joseph Hieronymus Windischmann was a German philosopher and anthropologist.
Theodor Brugsch was a German internist and politician.
Andreas Röschlaub was a German physician born in Lichtenfels, Bavaria.
Hyperactivity has long been part of the human condition, although hyperactive behaviour has not always been seen as problematic.
Hoimar von Ditfurth was a German physician and scientific journalist. He was the father of Christian von Ditfurth, a historian, and Jutta Ditfurth, a writer and journalist.
Adolph Christian Heinrich Henke was a German physician and pharmacologist known for his work in medical forensics. He was father-in-law to anatomist Rudolf Wagner (1805-1864).
Hippolytus Guarinonius was a physician and polymath who spent the main part of his life based at Hall in Tirol. He represented a militant strand of Catholicism and was instrumental in the building of the St Charles Church (Karlskirche) in Volders. He was also an instigator of the Andreas Oxner Anti-semitism cult.
Melchior Adam Weikard was born on April 27, 1742, near Fulda Germany. He was a physician and a philosopher. Weikard wrote the earliest reference to the behavioral disorder attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He was progressive for his time believing that illnesses have physical causes and not a result of moral wrongs or the spiritual influences. Weikard died near his birthplace on July 25, 1803.
