60 - Santa's Salmonella

12/24/20 • 38 min

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For a special holiday treat, we’re going to explore two tales of salmonella disease detectives -- the first about Mary Mallon (“Typhoid Mary”) and the birth of the genre; and the second about a mysterious salmonella outbreak at Massachusetts General Hospital solved with the assistance of a very jolly patient. Along the way, we’ll talk about clinical epidemiology, the long-lasting influence of Berton Roueché, and the joys of being an internist!

You can sign up for the Digital Education conference at cmeregistration.hms.harvard.edu/digitaleducation.

Sources:

Buckle GC, Fischer Walker CL, and Black RE, Typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever: Systematic review to estimate global morbidity and mortality for 2010.J Glob Health. 2012 Jun; 2(1): 010401.
Marineli F et al, Mary Mallon (1869-1938) and the history of typhoid fever.Ann Gastroenterol. 2013; 26(2): 132–134.
Soper GA, The Curious Career of Typhoid Mary, read on May 10, 1939 before the Section of Historical and Cultural Medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1911442/pdf/bullnyacadmed00595-0063.pdf
Norrington B, Cochineal: A Little Insect Goes a Long Way, UCSB Geography.
Roueche B, The Santa Claus Culture, The New Yorker, Aug 27, 1971.
Lang DJ et al, Carmine as a Source of Nosocomial Salmonellosis, NEJM. Apr 13, 1967.

You can buy Medical Detectives here: https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Detectives-Collection-Award-Winning-Investigative/dp/0452265886

You can sign up for the Digital Education conference at cmeregistration.hms.harvard.edu/digitaleducation.

Sources:

Buckle GC, Fischer Walker CL, and Black RE, Typhoid fever and paratyphoid fever: Systematic review to estimate global morbidity and mortality for 2010.J Glob Health. 2012 Jun; 2(1): 010401.
Marineli F et al, Mary Mallon (1869-1938) and the history of typhoid fever.Ann Gastroenterol. 2013; 26(2): 132–134.
Soper GA, The Curious Career of Typhoid Mary, read on May 10, 1939 before the Section of Historical and Cultural Medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1911442/pdf/bullnyacadmed00595-0063.pdf
Norrington B, Cochineal: A Little Insect Goes a Long Way, UCSB Geography.
Roueche B, The Santa Claus Culture, The New Yorker, Aug 27, 1971.
Lang DJ et al, Carmine as a Source of Nosocomial Salmonellosis, NEJM. Apr 13, 1967.

You can buy Medical Detectives here: https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Detectives-Collection-Award-Winning-Investigative/dp/0452265886

Previous Episode

59 - Cry of the Suffering Organs

Diagnosis is arguably the most important job of a physician. But what does it actually mean to make a diagnosis? In this episode, we’ll explore this question by tracking the development of the “classical” model of diagnosis and pathological anatomy and discussing three cases over three hundred years. Along the way, we’ll ponder the concept of the lesion, iatromechanistic theories of the human machine, the birth of the International Classification of Diseases, and the rise and decline of the autopsy.

You can sign up for the iMED Digital Education conference at cmeregistration.hms.harvard.edu/digitaleducation.

Sources:

Hooper R, The Physician’s Vade-Mecum: Containing the Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Prognosis and Treatment of Diseases. 1812.
Holdman L et al, The Value of the Autopsy in Three Medical Eras. N Engl J Med 1983; 308:1000-1005.
Cabot RC et al. CASE RECORDS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITALANTE-MORTEM AND POST-MORTEM RECORDS AS USED IN WEEKLY CLINICO-PATHOLOGICAL EXERCISES. Case 9431. Boston Med Surg J 1923; 189:595-599.
Shojania KG and Burton EC, The Vanishing Nonforensic Autopsy. N Engl J Med 2008; 358:873-875
Morgagni GB. The seats and causes of diseases investigated by anatomy in five books, containing a great variety of dissections, with remarks. To which are added ... copious indexes. 1769. Retrieved online: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL15821973W/The_seats_and_causes_of_diseases_investigated_by_anatomy
Castiglioni A, GB Morgagni and the Anatomico-pathological Conception of the Clinical. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, November 7, 1934.
Thiene G, Padua University: The role it has played in the History of Medicine and Cardiology and its position today. European Heart Journal, Volume 30, Issue 6, March 2009, Pages 629–635.
Zampieri F et al, Origin and development of modern medicine at the University of Padua and the role of the “Serenissima” Republic of Venice. Glob Cardiol Sci Pract. 2013; 2013(2): 149–162.
Conner, Annastasia (2017) "Galen’s Analogy: Animal Experimentation and Anatomy in the Second Century C.E.," Anthós: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 9.
Zampieri F et al. The clinico-pathological conference, based upon Giovanni Battista Morgagni's legacy, remains of fundamental importance even in the era of the vanishing autopsy. Virchows Arch. 2015 Sep;467(3):249-54.
Ghosh SK, Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682-1771): father of pathologic anatomy and pioneer of modern medicine. Anat Sci Int. 2017 Jun;92(3):305-312.
O’Neal JC, Auenbrugger, Corvisart, and the Perception of Disease. Eighteenth-Century Studies Vol. 31, No. 4, The Mind/Body Problem (Summer, 1998), pp. 473-489
Brown TM, THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND THE ACCEPTANCE OF IATROMECHANISM IN ENGLAND, 1665-1695. Bulletin of the History of Medicine Vol. 44, No. 1 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1970), pp. 12-30
Roos AM, Luminaries in Medicine: Richard Mead, James Gibbs, and Solar and Lunar Effects on the Human Body in Early Modern England. Bulletin of the History of Medicine Vol. 74, No. 3 (Fall 2000), pp. 433-457 (25 pages)
Frith J, History of Tuberculosis. Part 1 – Phthisis, consumption and the White Plague. JMVH. 2014; 22(2).
World Health Organization, History of the development of the ICD. https://www.who.int/classifications/icd/en/HistoryOfICD.pdf
Laennec RTH, A treatise on diseases of the chest and on mediate auscultation. 1834. Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/b21987002.
Marinker M, Why make people patients? J Med Ethics. 1975 Jul; 1(2): 81–84.
King LS, Medical Thinking: A Historical Preface. Princeton University Press, 2016.

Next Episode

61 - Etymologies

Words matter. At its best, etymology gives us insight not only into the origins of words, but why they remain so important today, especially in medicine, where we’ve been accruing jargon for millennia. In this episode, we’re delving into four specific words -- doctor, cerebrovascular accident, rounds, and zebras. And along the way, we’re going to discuss pre-historical pastoralists on the Eurasian steppes, medieval universities, Octagonal air-ventilated chambers in 19th century Baltimore, and of course, early 21st century sitcoms.

Works cited:

OSLER W. THE NATURAL METHOD OF TEACHING THE SUBJECT OF MEDICINE. JAMA. 1901;XXXVI(24):1673–1679. doi:10.1001/jama.1901.52470240001001
Fair, A 2014, 'A Laboratory of Heating and Ventilation: The Johns Hopkins Hospital as experimental architecture, 1870–90', The Journal of Architecture, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 357-81.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2014.930063
Engelhardt E. Apoplexy, cerebrovascular disease, and stroke: Historical evolution of terms and definitions. Dement Neuropsychol. 2017 Oct-Dec;11(4):449-453. doi: 10.1590/1980-57642016dn11-040016. PMID: 29354227; PMCID: PMC5770005.
Coupland AP, Thapar A, Qureshi MI, Jenkins H, Davies AH. The definition of stroke. J R Soc Med. 2017 Jan;110(1):9-12. doi: 10.1177/0141076816680121. Epub 2017 Jan 13. PMID: 28084167; PMCID: PMC5298424.
An Updated Definition of Stroke for the 21st Century
Ralph L. Sacco, MD, MS, FAHA, FAAN, Co-Chair, Scott E. Kasner, MD, MSCE, FAHA, FAAN, Co-Chair, Joseph P. Broderick, MD, FAHA, Louis R. Caplan, MD, J.J. (Buddy) Connors, MD, Antonio Culebras, MD, FAHA, FAAN, Mitchell S.V. Elkind, MD, MS, FAHA, FAAN, Mary G. George, MD, MSPH, FAHA, Allen D. Hamdan, MD, Randall T. Higashida, MD, Brian L. Hoh, MD, FAHA, L. Scott Janis, PhD, Carlos S. Kase, MD, Dawn O. Kleindorfer, MD, FAHA, Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD, Michael E. Moseley, PhD, Eric D. Peterson, MD, MPH, FAHA, Tanya N. Turan, MD, MS, FAHA, Amy L. Valderrama, PhD, RN, and Harry V. Vinters, MD on behalf of the American Heart Association Stroke Council, Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia, Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention, Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing, Council on Epidemiology and Prevention, Council on Peripheral Vascular Disease, and Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism
Harrison F, Roberts AE, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. A 1,000-Year-Old Antimicrobial Remedy with Antistaphylococcal Activity. mBio. 2015;6(4):e01129. Published 2015 Aug 11. doi:10.1128/mBio.01129-15
Furner-Pardoe J, Anonye BO, Cain R, Moat J, Ortori CA, Lee C, Barrett DA, Corre C, Harrison F. Anti-biofilm efficacy of a medieval treatment for bacterial infection requires the combination of multiple ingredients. Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 28;10(1):12687. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-69273-8. PMID: 32724094; PMCID: PMC7387442.
American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, third edition, 2011
Oxford English Dictionary Online
Johnson S, Dictionary. Retrieved online: https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/doctor-noun/
Riva MA. No renaissance for doctors in Shakespeare's plays. BMJ. 2017 May 22;357:j2223. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j2223. PMID: 28533302.