Life in the Fast Lane Medical Blog
Emergency Medicine education blog
Anton Breinl led expeditions to Brazil and survived yellow fever. He had also survived an accidental infection with trypanosomes, using an experimental medication to treat himself and thus securing a place among that small group of CBHs who have used themselves as laboratory animals.
Fleming’s role in the discovery and subsequent development of penicillin is well-known parable of the importance of serendipity in medical research. Fewer people know anything about the Scots bacteriologist’s earlier discovery of lysosyme or his work on the bacteriology of traumatic wound infection. It is this last topic that earns Fleming his status as a crazy bug hunter.
Ronald Ross had a passion for hunting down bugs not restricted to Plasmodium species. While pursuing malaria in India, his work was interrupted by a cholera epidemic in Bangalore. He entreated public health officials to introduce a sanitation programme, but lacked the charisma, the contacts or the clout to put knowledge into practice. Like many of the Victorian gentlemen bug hunters who had been early adopters of Pasteur’s germ theory, he was ahead of his time
In this year of Darwin anniversary celebrations, the name Alfred Russel Wallace has surfaced frequently. He was the co-author with Charles Darwin of the first scientific paper on natural selection (Linnean Society, 1st July, 1858), though in subsequent years Darwin’s reputation overshadowed Wallace’s. The evidence supports the view that Alfred Russel Wallace came to his conclusions independently from Darwin as a result of his travel in the Amazon basin and subsequently in Southeast Asia, where he sought evidence in support of the emerging theory of transmutation of species.
Dr Jesse William Lazear (1866 – 1900) In 1900 Dr Jesse William Lazear joined the Yellow Fever Commission team in Cuba under Walter Reed. He was employed to conduct studies into the bacteriology of tropical diseases. Following up on Ronald Ross’s recent discovery of the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria, and the theory [...]
