Moments of Truth: Four Creators of Modern Medicine

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7453.1443-a

BMJ 2004;328:1443 (12 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7453.1443-a

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Moments of Truth: Four Creators of Modern Medicine

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

None of the four 19th century medical personalities who arethe subjects of this book won the Nobel prize, but all madeimportant steps in the development of today's medicine. At atime when immediate auscultation and hippocratic succusion (holdingpatients by their shoulders and shaking them vigorously) weretypical diagnostic procedures, the Frenchman René Laënnecinvented the stethoscope and introduced it to clinical practice.Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian obstetrician, proved that puerperalfever was a type of septicaemia and pioneered antiseptic obstetrics.The book's third part focuses on the more famous pioneer ofantisepsis, Joseph Lister, and the fourth on Walter Reed, theUS army pathologist who discovered that yellow fever was spreadby mosquitoes.

Thomas Dormandy

John Wiley, £18.99/$30,pp 563 ISBN 0 470 86321 8

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The author, a retired consultant pathologist, describes thehistorical difficulties that the four men faced. Laënnec,born in 1781, lived through . . . [Full text of this article]

Ioana Vlad, junior doctor

Iasi, Romania ioanavlad@hotmail.com

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Politics of Noble prize!: Dr.Naseem A. Qureshi MD, IMAPA, LMIPS
bmj.com, 17 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Discoveries worthy of a Nobel: Akheel A Syed
bmj.com, 17 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Laennec misspelt: Mahender P. Chandie Shaw, et al.
bmj.com, 21 Jun 2004 [Full text]
Better a stethophone: john j picard
bmj.com, 12 Sep 2004 [Full text]