February 6 – On This Day in Medical History

Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with February 6.

Events

1813 – French physician, Charles Alexandre Hippolyte Amable Bertrand (1777-1849) was the first to use charcoal in the successful treatment of acute poisoning in humans (…on himself)

Experience XI. Mercury Oximuriate. February 6, 1813, at eight o’clock in the morning, I took on an empty stomach three grains of corrosive sublimate in a cup of a strong solution of powdered charcoal…At twenty minutes past eight, I felt a slight pain, as if oppressive, in the precordial region, with a little heat in the stomach. For an hour I felt a very slight sensation of thirst, which I made no attempt to satisfy; and at ten o’clock, not feeling the slightest pain, I breakfasted with relish, and I was not in the least inconvenienced.

Bertrand, 1817

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Births

1738 – Pierre-Joseph Desault (1738-1795), French surgeon; early description of Colles fracture (1801)

1864 – Alexander Tietze (1864-1927), German surgeon; described Tietze syndrome (1921)

1876 – Arthur Georg Läwen (1876–1958), German surgeon and anaesthesia pioneer. Rememberd for his work on sacral/extradural anaesthesia, paravertebral block, novocaine, curare and artificial ventilation.

1893 – Dame Ida Caroline Mann (1893-1983), English ophthalmologist. Described the Ida Mann classification of Coloboma (1937)

1893 – Madge Thurlow Macklin (1893-1962), American medical geneticist; described Curth-Macklin syndrome (1954)

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Deaths

2004 – Pirkko Santavuori (1933-2004), Finnish paediatric neurologist; described Santavuori disease (1973), and Muscle–Eye–Brain (MEB) disease (1977)

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Further reading

• Bertrand CAHA. Expériences sur l’emploi du charbon de bois dans l’empoisonnement par le muriate suroacigènê de mercure et l’acide arsénieux. Journal général de médecine, de chirurgie, et de pharmacie 1813; 374-380