Pathology and Philately
Pathology and Philately
Pathology and Philately
Abstract - This paper deals with some of the milestones in the history of
pathology, from ancient times to molecular pathology as documented by
philately. There are hundreds of postal stamps commemorating medicine
or pathology ephemeredes or their protagonists. Some are beautiful
works of art, others are simple documents of some historical interest. One
problem is to select a wide but significant sample of the general topic. We
could not ignore giants like Hippocrates, Avicenna, Leonardo da Vinci,
Vesalius, Virchow, and Papanicolaou. But Leeuwenhoek, Zeiss, Abbe,
Landsteiner and many others also merit registration. One obvious
problem is that philatelic authorities around the world, making the
milestone fragmentary, have ignored too many great names in medicine
and modern pathology.
Introduction
―History recognizes many names and ignores even more. This fact is
particularly true for philately. As a result, a philatelic version of any aspect
of the history of medicine cannot be totally comprehensive. The omission
of any event or individual’s role in no way lessens the importance of the
impact or contribution‖ (Erwin W. Ruggendorff, New York, N.Y., USA)
available in
http://www.urologichistory.museum/museum/content/about/resources/rug
endorffmedstamps.htm
Using philatelic material one can provide some insights into many major
milestones of the history of pathology and also to introduce the individuals
involved. It is a tentative journey through medical history from the antiquity
to the present. Some countries like Austria, Australia, and Argentina have
a tradition of honoring its leading citizens in medicine, while other
countries rarely do so.
All the stamps shown here are from my collection of digital images
recovered through the Internet and freely available for download. As E W
Rugendorff said on his homepage (see above) : ―Deciding what to omit
has been as difficult as deciding what to include. Though the resulting
picture does not necessarily present continuity, it does emphasize certain
peaks and memorable events in the evolvement of urology‖. I would say
the same only changing the word urology for pathology.
Italy 1959
Despite its somewhat sinister appearance, the Staff of Asklepios (or Aesculapius)
with its rod and an entwined snake has been an accepted symbol of the medical
profession since its inception. Many academic and medical societies, including
the World Medical Association, the World Health Organization, the American
Medical Association, the American Cancer Society, and many others have
this symbol in their logos. Asklepios was the God of the medical profession.
He was the favorite son of Apollo, also a God of medicine.
Spain has three semi-postal stamps honoring Asklepios ( the extra charge in
favor of anti-tuberculosis fight – see the Lorena cross in red):
Hippocratic medicine
Greece stamps honoring Hippocrates are several, and I choose only a few.The
first one shows a bust of Hippocrates and the Oath in the background.
There is one Greek stamp depicting the famous tree under which he gave his
teachings to his disciples:
Middle Ages
Avicenna (Ibn Sina)(980-1037), a Persian physician, astronomer, and
philosopher in his Canon of Medicine, combined the concepts of Hippocrates,
Galen and Islamic principles with the medical practice of his time. His book
was widely used in medicine teaching up to around the mid of 17th century.
Tunisia, France and Poland issued stamps depicting Avicenna:
The Arab Republic of Syria (1965) and Iran issued stamps honoring both Hippocrates
and Avicenna, and the staff of Asklepios has wrongly two serpents (this is a caduceus,
the rod of Hermes, the Mercurial symbol of commerce):
Early microscopists
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723). For example, he was the first to see
living protozoa, bacteria and spermatozoa (according to Rugendorff, they
were observed for the first time by his disciple L. Hamm). He used an
extremely simple microscope, built by himself, but was a well disciplined
observer and made convincing drawings of his findings.
Holland and Antigua & Barbuda issued stamps honoring Leeuwenhoek and
his microscope:
Robert Hooke (1635-1703) in his Micrographia (1665) used the word cell,
describing the small pores or holes he saw in a thin piece of cork, and
unknowingly started a medical revolution (he had no idea or conception of the
cells as we have now,,,). His book had an enormous impact on his days, and
besides this, he was a prolific scientist and inventor. He divided the podium, if
you permit the metaphor, with his contemporary and contender, Sir Isaac
Newton.
Henry Harris in his excellent book The Birth of the Cell says: ―There is, in my
view, no convincing evidence that he saw individual living cells in any other
tissue‖.
The polymath Hooke deserves a visit to the web site dedicated to him:
http://www.roberthooke.org.uk/intro.htm
The 18th century saw almost no great progress, for want of better
instruments, but the first half of the 19th century saw many contributions from
scientists now using better built microscopes, including the use of the solar
light as illumination (W F Gleichen): B C Dumorthier, Jan Purkine, Robert
Brown, C G Ehrenberg, A H Hassal, Otto Bütschli, G G Valentin, R Remak,
M Raspail, etc, culminating with the “Cell Theory” commonly attributed to
Theodor Schwann and Matthias Schleiden in 1838~1839. All were ignored
by world philately.
Henry Harris in his above mentioned book, laments the great rivalry between
Germany and other nations, creating a reciprocal nationalistic bias in their
respective publications, resulting in the usual omission of Purkine as an
equal contributor to the formulation of the Cell Theory; actually he preceded
them in 1837: in a public lecture given in Prague. In his work Purkine was the
first to use a microtome, a mechanical device for slicing thin tissue sections
for microscopic examination. He used glacial acetic acid, potassium
bichromate in his pathological or anatomical preparations, and also became
the first to use glass-slide preparations with balsam as a mounting medium.
It is worth of note that the first largely available microtome was developed by
Zeiss in 1880, and that the ―apochromatic‖ oil-immersion objective lenses of
Abbe were first constructed in 1870. Great progress was also made in fixing
and staining of tissues. The second half of the 19th century saw the
establishment of chairs of pathological anatomy in all medical schools. Those
achievements led to modern Pathology.
Modern Pathology
His Die Cellular-pathologie, 1858, probably the most influential book ever
written on medicine, was a compilation of previous lectures and formal scientific
papers, and incorporated Robert Remak (1815-1865) views that every animal
cell originated from a previous animal cell, a position never adopted by
Schwann,
Virchow’s Archiv
Dissatisfied with the editors of journals that refused to accept some of his
papers, Virchow, with his friend Benno Ernst Heinrich Reinhardt (1819-1852), in
1846 founded a new journal, Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie
und für klinische Medizin ("Archives of Pathological Anatomy and Physiology
and of Clinical Medicine"). He wrote that the aim of the journal was a close
union of clinical medicine, pathological anatomy and physiology and this
remained his lifetime objective. He strongly propounded the concept that
unproved hypothesis is an anathema for the practice of medicine and that no
man could be regarded as infallible with regard to knowledge, judgment or
supposition.
This journal became one of the most prominent medical periodicals of the time.
After Reinhardt's death in 1852, Virchow continued as sole editor, now known
as Virchows Archiv. In 1856 Virchow accepted an invitation to return to the
University of Berlin as professor of anatomy, general pathology, and therapy, as
well as director of the newly created Pathological Institute at the famous Charité
Hospital in Berlin. The stamp of DDR (Deutsche Demokkratische Republik)
honoring the 250th year of foundation of Charité has his effigy.
Karl Landsteiner
Frits (“Frederyk”) Zernike (1898-1966), Dutch physicist, in early 1930
discovered the phase contrast phenomenon in his optical laboratory and later
invented the phase contrast microscope. He had difficulties in convincing the
Zeiss industry to make commercially available phase microscopes. Today the
study of living organisms and cells are unthinkable without the help of phase
microscope. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics ―for his demonstration
of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast
microscope‖ in 1953.
He was honored by his native Netherlands and by the Republic of Guinea:
.
Cytopathology
The USA issued in 1965 the stamp ―Fighting Cancer with Microscope and
Stethoscope‖, and emphasizing its early diagnosis, and a first day of issue
cover shows the Pap smear being fixed with a drop of cytological fixative.
In 1996 the Republic of Croatia issued a stamp for the awareness of the Pap
test in prevention of cancer of the uterus, and in 2004, Argentina also issued a
stamp with similar purpose:
Molecular Pathology
César Milstein (1927- ), an Argentinean scientist, shared the 1984 Nobel Prize
in Medicine with Georges J. F. Köhler (1946- ), and Nils K. Jerne for theories
concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system
and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies.
Monoclonal antibodies are used in diagnostic testing, specially immune-
histochemistry in pathology, for the development of drugs, vaccines and
hormones, and for cancer therapy. Argentina honored his native scientist with a
stamp in 2005.
3) Grunze H and Spriggs AI. History of Clinical Cytology. 1980 G-I-T Verlag
Ernst Griebeler, Darmstadt.