Johnson, an apothecary published this record of what he collected during a herb-collecting excursion conducted on July 13, 1629, with an appendix recounting the results of a second excursion on August 1. This was the first local catalogue of plants published in England. It has also been called an early work in urban ecology.

Most of this book concerns John Goodyer, his life, his garden, a detailed 40-page catalogue of Goodyer's library, Goodyer's list of plants, lists of plants grown in English gardens, etc. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A very substantial expansion and update of Gerarde's herbal published in 1597. Besides correcting mistakes, Johnson added over 800 new species and 700 new figures, raising the number of plant descriptions in the work to about 2,850. Digital facsimile of the 1636 edition from the Internet Archive at this link.

This was the catalogue of John Gerarde's garden at Holborn, where he introduced exotic trees, fruits, and plants from the New World, and also grew widely available English plants. The text was very basic, being essentially a plant list, the first list of its kind. The edition must have been relatively small since only one copy survived, in the Hans Sloane collection in the British Library. In addition to his career as a surgeon, Gerard was superintendent at the gardens of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, a position he continued in for more than 20 years. In 1586, the College of Physicians established a physic garden with Gerard as curator, a position he held till 1604.

In his garden catalogue Gerard listed over 1000 different trees, shrubs and plants that he was personally growing. In the revised second edition of 1599 he added English names for the plants.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Bawden, Pirie, Bernal, Fankuchen. The authors isolated and crystallized tobacco mosaic virus, finding for the first time that a virus contained nucleic acids, when others claimed that it just contained proteins. They showed that the virus molecules were anisometric and consist of ribonucleoprotein.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

In this monograph with numerous charts and 34 full-page plates Brown classified streptococci into α, β, A prime and γ based on the type and degree of hemolysis produced by the bacteria on a blood agar plate. He also definitively demonstrated the value of the blood agar plate for the classification of bacteria. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Reed, Carroll. In this paper of monograph length the authors irrefutably proved that yellow fever was not caused by a bacterial infection, allowing them to concentrate future research on a viral cause of the disease.

Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

The authors were the first to isolate a pathogenic coronavirus in chickens. This was the first pathogenic coronavirus described.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

The authors showed that the angiontensin-converting enzyme 2, abbreviated ACE2, is the obligative cell receptor for the SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV).

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

The Baltimore classification of virus groups places viruses into one of seven groups depending on a combination of their nucleic acid (DNA or RNA), strandedness (single-stranded or double-stranded), sense, and method of replication.

• 1.1Group I: Double-stranded DNA viruses
• 1.2Group II: Single-stranded DNA viruses
• 1.3Group III: Double-stranded RNA viruses
• 1.4Group IV & V: Single-stranded RNA viruses
  • 1.4.1Group IV: Single-stranded RNA viruses - Positive-sense
  • 1.4.2Group V: Single-stranded RNA viruses - Negative-sense
• 1.5Group VI: Positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that replicate through a DNA intermediate
• 1.6Group VII: Double-stranded DNA viruses that replicate through a single-stranded RNA intermediate

Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

The Translator's Introduction begins as follows: "The work now presented to the public has heretofore existed in manuscript only. Circumstances have delayed its publication in France, and some years may yet elapse before it appears in that country..."

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Planned by Cuvier as his masterwork on this topic, but unpublished during his lifetime, this posthumous work was published in parts over seven years. The complete work contains 336 plates. Few complete copies exist. Digital facsimile of parts 1-4 from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Primarily a history of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses [NACGN], which existed for the express purpose of "promoting unity within the nursing profession and furthering the cause of democracy."  Integration in the nursing profession reached a sufficient point that in 1951 the NACGN voted for the formal disestablishment of the NACGN, and merger with the American Nurses' Association.

Digital facsimile of all the volumes from Google Books; vol. 1 at this link.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.

"Organized in Kansas with a capacity of 750 beds, this unit was made up of 47 doctors, 52 nurses, a hospital dietitian, and 318 enlisted men. The unit shipped out to England in
May, 1942 on the H.M.T. Orcades. They began operations in Oran after the Allies invaded North Africa, and remained there until the invasion of Sicily where they were in theatre until 1943 after the Axis forces surrendered. After returning to England for refitting, they prepared for deployment following the Allied invasion on D-Day, crossing the channel July 7, 1944 and landing on Utah Beach, they served through the Battle of the Bulge, and continued across Europe into Germany until the end of the War. The 77thEvacuation Hospital treated tens of thousands of injured Allied soldiers, civilians, and POWs during their three-year tour of duty, encompassing bullet and shrapnel wounds,broken limbs, surgeries, orthopedics, blood transfusions, burn care, and even dental work. This was later made into a documentary film in 2008 incorporating interviews with many of the
surviving members" (Kol Shaver).

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

"Modern medical ethics in the English-speaking world is commonly thought to derive from the medical philosophy of the Scotsman John Gregory (1725-1773) and his younger associates, the English Dissenter Thomas Percival (1740-1804) and the American Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). This book is the first extensive study of this suggestion. Dr Haakonssen shows how the three thinkers combined Francis Bacon's and the Scottish Enlightenment's ideas of the science of morals and the morals of science. She demonstrates how their medical ethics was a successful adaptation of traditional moral ideas to the dramatically changing medical world especially the voluntary hospital. In accounting for the dynamics of this process, she rejects the anachronism that modern medical ethics was a new paradigm" (publisher).

"In England in the seventeenth century, childbirth was the province of women. The midwife ran the birth, helped by female "gossips"; men, including the doctors of the day, were excluded both from the delivery and from the subsequent month of lying-in. But in the eighteenth century there emerged a new practitioner: the "man-midwife" who acted in lieu of a midwife and delivered normal births. By the late eighteenth century, men-midwives had achieved a permanent place in the management of childbirth, especially in the most lucrative spheres of practice.

"Why did women desert the traditional midwife? How was it that a domain of female control and collective solidarity became instead a region of male medical practice? What had broken down the barrier that had formerly excluded the male practitioner from the management of birth?...Exploring the sociocultural dimensions of childbirth, Wilson argues with great skill that it was not the desires of medical men but the choices of mothers that summoned man-midwifery into being" (publisher).

"This book places childbirth in early-modern England within a wider network of social institutions and relationships. Starting with illegitimacy - the violation of the marital norm - it proceeds through marriage to the wider gender-order and so to the ’ceremony of childbirth’, the popular ritual through which women collectively controlled this, the pivotal event in their lives. Focussing on the seventeenth century, but ranging from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, this study offers a new viewpoint on such themes as the patriarchal family, the significance of illegitimacy, and the structuring of gender-relations in the period" (publisher).

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile of Vol. 1 from Google Books at this link, of Vol. 2 at this link.

Portions of Watson's famous memoir appeared in the January and February issues of the Atlantic Monthly prior to their publication in book form in the Spring of 1968.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Linn, Arber. Arber announced the discovery, with proof, of the first restriction endonuclease (restriction enzyme or restrictase)."These enzymes are found in bacteria and archaea and provide a defence mechanism against invading viruses.^[4][5] Inside a prokaryote, the restriction enzymes selectively cut up foreign DNA in a process called restriction digestion; meanwhile, host DNA is protected by a modification enzyme (a methyltransferase) that modifies the prokaryotic DNA and blocks cleavage. Together, these two processes form the restriction modification system.^[6]"

Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

In this single author paper Boyer isolated, characterized and named the enzyme that Arber No. 12028 had observed and described in terms of its basic action on DNA. Boyer called it the “fi R-factor restriction endonuclease,” later to become EcoR1. He wrote, “The various restriction endonucleases with exclusive recognition capacities offer a unique probe for dissecting small genomes such as gamma, fd, polyoma and SV40. This work is now being undertaken in several labs, including the author’s."

Digital facsimile from annualreviews.org at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Mertz, Davis. Mertz discovered that DNA ends generated by cutting with the EcoRI restriction enzyme are “sticky”, permitting any two such DNAs to be readily “recombined”. Using this discovery, in June 1972 "she easily created the first recombinant DNA that could have been cloned in bacteria. Her success with this project contributed to her thesis adviser, Paul Berg, receiving the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.^[16] However, Mertz did not proceed with this cloning because of the moratorium in place at that time, leaving it for Herbert Boyer, Stanley N. Cohen and their colleagues to prove in 1973 that recombinant DNAs made by this method can actually self-replicate in bacteria.^[17] (Wikipedia article on Janet E. Mertz, accessed 3-2020). Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication Bolivar, Rodriguez, Betlach...Boyer...The authors describe the composition and molecular construction of pBR-322 (named after Bolivar and Rodriguez) and call it "the most versatile plasmid we have ever constructed." The paper includes the first restriction map of the plasmid. Plasmid pBR-322 was the plasmid used in the synthesis of the gene for somatostatin (No. 10964), leading to the biotechnological production of insulin by Boyer's biotechnology company, Genentech in 1977. 

The authors presented this paper in June 1977. It was published in the journal Gene in November, 1977. The paper also appeared in Beers, Basset (eds.) Recombinant molecules: Impact on science and society, Miles International Symposium, Series No. 10. New York: Raven Press, 1977. The book form version of the paper indicates that it was submitted for publication in the journal, suggesting that the version in book form might have been released before the publication in the journal.

(Thanks to Juan Weiss for this reference and its interpretation.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Luria, Human. Luria and Human discovered the restriction modification system found in bacteria and other prokaryotic organisms. This system provides a defense against foreign DNA such as that carried by bacteriophages. They found that bacteriophage growing within an infected bacterium could be modified, so that upon their release and re-infection of a related bacterium the bacteriophage’s growth is restricted (inhibited). 

"It was found that, for a bacteriophage λ that can grow well in one strain of Escherichia coli, for example E. coli C, when grown in another strain, for example E. coli K, its yields can drop significantly, by as much as 3-5 orders of magnitude. The host cell, in this example E. coli K, is known as the restricting host and appears to have the ability to reduce the biological activity of the phage λ. If a phage becomes established in one strain, the ability of that phage to grow also becomes restricted in other strains" (Wikipedia article on Restriction enzyme, accessed 3-2020). 

Digital facsimile from PubMedCentral at this link.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Dussoix, Arber. The authors discovered that restriction of DNA from infecting bacteriophage was due to the attack and breakdown of the modified bacteriophage's DNA by specific enzymes of the recipient bacteria. This was a key development in understanding the restriction modification system (RM system).

Order of authorship in the original publication: Stanier, Niel. For much of the 20th centurty prokaryotes were regarded as a single group of organisms, classified on the basis of their biochemistry, morphology and metabolism. In this paper the authors established the division between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, defining prokaryotes as organisms lacking a cell nucleus.

Chatton was the first to characterize the distinction between the eukaryotic and prokaryotic systems of cellular organization. See Jan Sapp, "The prokaryote-Eukaryote dichtomy: meanings and mythology," Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev., 69 (2005) 292-305.

Records on pp. 80-104 Spallanzani's work on the torpedo. In the 1780's Spallanzani turned to marine biology, making several trips to the Mediterranean region. On his visit to Portovenere in 1783 "he instituted the first marine zoologial laboratory. . . . He refuted the claim that the torpedo fish was attracted by magnets, intrepidly showing that its greatest shock was delivered when the fish was laid on a glass plate. Excising the heart did not lessen the shock until the circulation began to fail "(DSB).

Edition and translation of about 60 letters mostly between Pasteur and his protegé Louis Thuillier in the Reynolds Historical Library at the University of Alabama. During the period involved in this correspondence "Thuillier conducted a series of vaccinations against anthrax in sheep and cattle in Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is believed that Pasteur intended to conduct the vaccinations himself, but was constrained by other responsibilities from doing the job in person. Relying on Thuillier as a surrogate prompted a steady stream of letters between protégé and mentor, detailing the successes, failures and obstacles faced in the project. Tragically, the relationship between Pasteur and Thuillier ended just over a month after the completion of the vaccination tests in Germany. As that project ended, Pasteur sent Thuillier with three other scientists to study a cholera epidemic in Egypt. Thuillier became ill, most likely from cholera and died on September 18, 1883 at age 27."

The author, qualified M.D. in both Edinburgh and Paris,  characterized himself on the title page of this work as "Commissioned by the Government of the Colony of Mauritius to study M. Pasteur's new treatment in Paris."  Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Explores science and medicine as studied and practiced in fifteenth-century Italy, including how astrology was taught in relation to astronomy. It illustrates how the “predictive art” of astrology was often a critical, secretive source of information for Italian Renaissance rulers, particularly in times of crisis.

Saunders "practised astrology and cheiromancy during the golden age of the pseudo-sciences in England." The DNB characterizes this work as "a systematic exposition of astrological therapeutics, based largely upon examination of the urine, sputa, etc., by horoscopical methods. The author is held up as a ‘counterquack’ in commendatory verses by Henry Coley [q. v.], the mathematician, and others." 

The definitive reference on Sir William Osler, his life, his times, his friends, and his influence. Osler was voted "the most influential physician in history" in a 2016 survey of North American doctors, but his interests and influence transcend medicine. This is the first comprehensive reference on Osler's personality, character, life, times and thinking about a broad range of issues relevant to the human condition. The nearly 967 page work written by 135 contributors addresses four questions:

What was Osler really like, and what did he do?

What did Osler write, and who influenced his thinking?

How has Osler been assessed during the century since his death in 1919?

Does Osler still matter, and, if so, how?

A book intended for a popular audience on raising, educating, and caring for health problems of children. Blankaart offered advice and instructions to parents for treating all sorts of children's illnesses as well as tips on the prevention of disease. He provided detailed descriptions and instructions for many home recipes that parents could prepare and administer to children. Two appendices follow the three main parts: the first called "Verscheide aanmerkingen aangaande de kinder-ziekten" (Various notes on children's diseases) with 23 numbered case studies, including a description of a child whose body was covered with scales except for his head (gossips blamed his mother for thinking about fish when she was pregnant!); the second, translated from English, called "Historie der Japanse campher" (History of Japanese camphor). Camphor was widely used as a decongestant.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

A deluxe folio work with numerous full-page engravings illustrating the architecture, floor plans etc. of the Hôtel des Invalides by its administrator, who signed the dedication "L.J.D.B." Designed by Libéral Bruant, and built to house wounded military veterans, the hospital was modelled on El Escorial. It was was commissioned by Louis XIV in 1670. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

The work was translated into English by James Fraser and published in the much smaller 8vo format, with some new material, but only one folding plate, as A pattern of a well-constituted and well-governed hospital: Or, a brief description of building, and full relation of the establishment, constitution, discipline, oeconomy and administration of the government of the Royal Hospital of the Invalids near Paris. Partly translated from a large book printed some years ago in French; and partly extracted out of some manuscriptions never before published. London: Richard Baldwin, 1695.

Collected edition of Babinski's previously published works edited by Barré and numerous other editors. Contents: La méthode en sémiologie. - Sémiologie. - Tumeurs cérébrales et compressions cérébrales. - Affections non pyramidales. - Affections du cervelet, du bulbe et du labyrinthe. - Paraplégies - affections de la moëlle. - Affections des nerfs. - Affections des muscles. - Hystériépithiatisme. - Troubles physiopathiques. - Thérapeutique. - Articles publiés à l'origine dans différents journaux médicaux.

See also Jacques Philippon & Jacques Poirier, Joseph Babinski, a biography. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Dickens' account of his visit on the day after Christmas, 1851 to the wards at St. Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, founded in 1751 to provide free care to the impoverished and incurable mentally ill.

"The inhabitants of St. Luke’s largely sit in solitude. Dickens decries the absence of "domestic articles to occupy . . . the mind" in one gallery holding several silent, melancholy women, and praises the comfortable furnishings--and the relative "earnestness and diligence" of the inmates--in another. He uses statistics to show the prevalence of female patients, "the general efficacy of the treatment" at St. Luke’s, and the unhealthy weight gain of the inhabitants due to inactivity. Dickens describes the behavior of various distinctive inhabitants during the usual fortnightly dance, the viewing of a Christmas tree, and the distribution of presents" (http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12156).

Digital edition from Dickens Journals Online at this link.

This brief work was reprinted by St. Luke's Hospital and published as a separate pamphlet, London, 1860, as a means of solicting donations.

In this illustrated work on parasitic worms in the human body Vallisnieri proved that these worms were not due to spontaneous generation, but grew from eggs. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from BnF Gallica at this link.

The author "was a celebrated Englishwoman, noted for her beauty as a Pre-Raphaelite model and philanthropist. She was the wife of the biographer Leslie Stephen and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, members of the Bloomsbury Group."

Regarding this work the extraordinarily comprehensive Wikipedia article on Julia Stephen commented when I accessed it in 3-2020, "In addition to her tireless contributions to running the Stephen household, and attending to the needs of her relatives, she worked to support friends and supplicants. She had a strong sense of social justice, travelling around London by bus, nursing the sick in hospitals and workhouses. She would later write about her nursing experience in her Notes from Sick Rooms (1883).^[169] This is a discussion of good nursing practices, demonstrating fine attention to detail. A notable passage is her description of the misery caused by bread crumbs in the bed.^[170] "

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

"Duguet also served as inspector general of health services of Lebanon and Syria under the French Mandate and was responsible for the medical supervision of the pilgrimage to Mecca. The first part of the book gives some historical background to the Hajj, and its roots in the Qur’an. Duguet describes the obligations, restrictions, and propaganda associated with it, the countries of origin of the pilgrims, social classes, gender, means of transportation, their religious ceremonies, the visit to Medina, and the Hajj of Shiites from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait). Part two concentrates on the public health and sanitary problems of the Hajj, the international focus on Muslim pilgrims after the cholera epidemic of 1865 and the 1866 international sanitary conference in Constantinople and subsequent conferences, as the building of railroads and the new Suez Canal accelerated the spread of infectious diseases. Duguet looks at specific pilgrimage years, the last years of Ottoman Turkish administration of the holy sites, and the fall of Sharif Hussein in 1924. Part three considers the Saudi conquest of Hejaz, the roles of Ibn Saud and the Wahhabis, pilgrimage during 1925‒30, and the incidence of cholera affecting the Hajj. The work includes details of daily fatalities in different years, particularly during what Duguet describes as the pèlerinage de l’épouvante (pilgrimage of horror), the cholera outbreak in 1893. The pilgrimage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries took a huge toll on human lives. When disease struck, the loss of life could reach 40 percent of all pilgrims. In 1891, out of 46,000 pilgrims, 21,000 never returned home. Appendices include descriptions of the actions taken to protect pilgrims by the International Quarantine Board of Egypt in implementing the International Sanitary Convention of 1926, and the Beirut and Paris conferences on this subject of January 1929 and October 1930. The book is illustrated with photographs of the pilgrims and their caravans and has maps of the routes most used to reach Mecca" (https://www.wdl.org/en/item/17257/). Digital facsimile from the World Digital Library or from loc.gov at this link.

Assalini served as a military surgeon with the Napoleonic armies in Egypt, Spain, Germany, and Russia, taking part in 60 battles and 400 combats. He was wounded three times, and was eventually appointed First Surgeon to the Emperor. His career essentially ended with the fall of Napoleon. This work underwent numerous editions. Digital facsimile of the 4th corrected and expanded edition (1819) from Google Books at this link.

At the time of publication Assalini, a military surgeon with Napoleon, characterized himself on the title page as "Docteur en Médecine et Chirugien de 1re classe de la Garde des Consuls..." Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.

Translated into English by Adam Neale as: Observations on the disease called the plague, the dysentery, the ophthalmy of Egypt, and on the means of prevention. : With some remarks on the yellow fever of Cadiz, and the description and plan of an hospital for the reception of patients affected with epidemic and contagious diseases. London: J. Mawman, 1804. Digital facsimile from wellcomecollection.org at this link.

Digital facsimile from biusante.parisdescartes.fr at this link.

Only a very small number of copies of this thesis appear to have been issued.

http://www.environmentandsociety.org/

"The Environment & Society Portal is a gateway to open access resources about human participation in, and understandings of, the environment. It addresses the community of teachers and researchers in environment-related humanities, as well as the interested public.

"The Portal is the digital publication platform and archive of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC), a nonprofit joint initiative of the LMU (University of Munich) and the Deutsches Museum. As such, it reflects the research themes of the RCC and its fellows, who are international experts in related fields. Fellows are involved in contributing to the Portal and curating its content.

"What kinds of content can I find on the Environment & Society Portal?

"For those looking to browse a digital trove of scholarly and popular environmental materials, the Multimedia Library is the place to start. Curated by RCC fellows and associates, its content ranges from early modern broadsheet prints to the Anthropocene Milestones comic strips; from Nature’s Past podcasts to environmental film profiles. Users can find retrodigitized and indexed radical environmental journals like Earth First! as well as full-text searchable peer-reviewed journals such as Environment and History, Global Environment, Climate of the Past, Environmental Values, and Environmental Humanities. Each object is tagged and linked to connect it to related resources within the Portal and beyond. All content on the Environment & Society Portal is openly accessible.

"The Portal’s most popular features are its peer-reviewed Virtual Exhibitions, which curate digital objects within interpretive contexts. Inspired by research projects of our fellows and collections of our partner institutions, they cover topics such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: A Book the Changed the World; Wilderness Babel: What does Wilderness mean in your language?, Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands, The City’s Currents: A History of Water in Twentieth-Century Bogotá, and Ludwig Leichhardt: A German Explorer’s Letters Home from Australia.

"Written and peer-reviewed by experts in environmental history and related fields, Arcadia articles tell stories about sites, events, persons, organizations, or species as they relate to nature and society. For example, in her article “The Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador: Pachamama has Rights,” María Valeria Berros discusses the recognition of nature’s rights in Ecuador; in his article “Corridors, Concessions, and the Extraction of Natural Resources in Liberia,” Emmanuel K. Urey describes the export of iron ores as part of an “open door policy.” Individual Arcadia articles  make up thematic collections on topics like water histories, global environmental movements, “nature states,” and national parks and conservation. A joint project of the RCC and the European Society for Environmental History, the project provides visibility for new research in the field and helps forge connections, especially among early career scholars.

"Provocative and less formal pieces related to the RCC’s research themes can be found in its online journal, RCC Perspectives. These full-text issues on topics like New Environmental Histories of Latin America and the Caribbean, Energy Transitions in History; and Why Do We Value Diversity? Biocultural Diversity in a Global Context, are fully indexed on the Portal, linking them to related resources.

"The Portal’s map, timeline, and keyword explorer are great ways to explore environmentally significant Places & Events. These very brief summaries, such as the Stockholm Declaration of 1972, the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, the US Public Land Surveys, and the opening of the Suez Canal, are fact-checked contributions, written mostly by early career researchers. Places & Events also includes short profiles of, and links to, other Portal content."

In 1922 Bohr was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them." Including Bohr's 1932 address, Light and life, in the Nobel Prize category in this bibliography stretches our definition, since we aim to cite the key paper or papers for which the prize was awarded. However, in this instance, the impact of this paper on the later development of Molecular Biology was so significant that I decided to include it.

This pamphlet predates both the lecture's publication in Danish in Naturens Verden and the English translation published in Nature, both of which were published in 1933. A German translation appeared in Naturwissenschaften in the same year. Niels Bohr's lecture marks his first detailed attempt to apply concepts arising from quantum mechanics (particularly complementarity) to areas outside physics. "Here, for the first time, Bohr raised a question that was to preoccupy him, off and on, until his death: Would it ever be possible to push the analysis of living processes to the limit where they can be described in terms of pure physics and chemistry?" (Pais, p. 441). Bohr's lecture can be looked upon as one of the foundation stones of molecular biology in that it inspired the young physicist Max Delbrück— who was in the audience when Bohr delivered it— to switch from physics to biology "to find out whether indeed there was anything to this point of view" (quoted in Pais, p. 442). In 1935, two years after hearing Bohr's lecture, Delbrück and two other scientists published a paper on genetic mutations caused by x-ray irradiation, in which they concluded that the gene must be a molecule. The ideas expressed in this paper inspired Schrödinger to write his famous What is Life?, a work which in turn motivated Watson, Crick, Wilkins and other scientists to devote their careers to unraveling "the secret of the gene." Delbrück himself became a leader of what was known as the "phage group" of bacterial geneticists; in 1969, he received a share of the Nobel Prize for physiology / medicine for describing the means by which living cells are infected with viruses. "It is fair to say that with Max [Delbrück], Bohr found his most influential philosophical disciple outside the domain of physics, in that through Max, Bohr provided one of the intellectual fountainheads for the development of 20th century biology" (quoted in Pais, p. 442). Pais, Niels Bohr's Times, pp. 411; 441-42. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, pp. 32-35.

When I wrote this entry in March 2020 the text of Bohr's Light and life appeared to be most readily available online in the digital facsimile of his Atomic physics and human knowledge (1958) available from the Internet Archive at this link.

"This textbook shows how first-order ordinary differential equations (ODEs) are used to model the growth of a population, the administration of drugs, and the mechanism by which living cells divide. The authors present linear ODEs with constant coefficients, extend the theory to systems of equations, model biological phenomena, and offer solutions to first-order autonomous systems of nonlinear differential equations using the Poincaré phase plane. They also analyse the heartbeat, nerve impulse transmission, chemical reactions, and predator-prey problems. After covering partial differential equations and evolutionary equations, the book discusses diffusion processes, the theory of bifurcation, and chaotic behaviour. It concludes with problems of tumour growth and the spread of infectious diseases" (publisher). Second edition, with M. J. Plank, 2010.

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30120-1

"During the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, Gardner recognised that the public, researchers and health authorities needed clear, accessible and up-to-date information.^[8] Working with a team in Australia, Gardner and Ensheng Dong created an interactive dashboard that debuted on January 22, 2020.^[9][10] During March 2020, the platform was accessed 1.2 billion times per day.^[9]" (Wikipedia article on Lauren Gardner (scientist), accessed 3-2020).

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/

"In the summer of 1944 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, McClintock systematic studies on the mechanisms of the mosaic color patterns of maize seed and the unstable inheritance of this mosaicism.^[44] She identified two new dominant and interacting genetic loci that she named Dissociation (Ds) and Activator (Ac). She found that the Dissociation did not just dissociate or cause the chromosome to break, it also had a variety of effects on neighboring genes when the Activator was also present, which included making certain stable mutations unstable. In early 1948, she made the surprising discovery that both Dissociation and Activator could transpose, or change position, on the chromosome.^{[45][46][47][48]"}

"Between 1948 and 1950, she [McClintock] developed a theory by which these mobile elements regulated the genes by inhibiting or modulating their action. She referred to Dissociation and Activator as "controlling units"—later, as "controlling elements"—to distinguish them from genes. She hypothesized that gene regulation could explain how complex multicellular organisms made of cells with identical genomes have cells of different function.^[52] McClintock's discovery challenged the concept of the genome as a static set of instructions passed between generations.^[3] In 1950, she reported her work on Ac/Ds and her ideas about gene regulation in a paper entitled "The origin and behavior of mutable loci in maize" published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Wikipedia article on Barbara McClintock, accessed 3-2020). Digital facsimile from pnas.org at this link.

In 1983 McClintock was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for her discovery of mobile genetic elements." See also Nos. 13560 and14072.

Billroth provided the first account of streptocci wound infection, calling the bacteria Coccobacteria septica. When Billroth introduced antisepic techniques in his surgical practice the number of surgical patients with these infections dramatically decreased. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Speech of Charles Dickens as Chairman at the Dinner on Behalf of the Hospital for Sick Children, February 9th, 1858. This 10-page pamphlet was first published in 1858 and reprinted in 1864, in 1865, and in 1874 to raise money for the hospital. Digital facsimile of the 1874 printing from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

From Causes of Death, p. 27:

"Influenza and pneumonia (All forms).

"In 1918 the registration area (exclusive of Hawaii) 477,467 deaths wee assigned to influenza and pneumonia (all forms). In the latter part of that year a pandemic on influenza swept over the country and did not fully spend its force until well into 1919....

"The 477,467 deaths from influenza and penumonia (all forms) in 1918 correspond to a rate of 583.2 per 100,000 population as against 125,795 in 1917 and a rate of 167, which till 1918, was the highest rare from these causes for any year since 1910. Fully 79.8 per cent of the mortality from these causes in 1918 occurred in the last four months of the year...."

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

From "Influenza and pneumonia (All forms)" p. 28:

"In the later part of 1918 a pandemic of influenza swept over the country and did not fully spend its force until well into 1919....

"In the registration area (exclusive of Hawaii) the 189,326 deaths from influenza and pneumonia (all forms) in 1919 correspond to a rate of 222.4 per 100,000 population as against 479,038 deaths in 1918, with a rate of 588.7. Fully 79.8 per cent of the mortality from these causes in 1918 occurred in the last four months of the year, and as the pandemic continued into 1919, fully 83.2 per cent of the mortality from these causes in 1919 occured in the first six months of the year...."

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital edition from http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11150.html.

Published on March 5, 2020. 

Order of authorship in the original publication: Holshue, DeBolt, Lindquist....Cohn. 

"Summary

"An outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) that began in Wuhan, China, has spread rapidly, with cases now confirmed in multiple countries. We report the first case of 2019-nCoV infection confirmed in the United States and describe the identification, diagnosis, clinical course, and management of the case, including the patient’s initial mild symptoms at presentation with progression to pneumonia on day 9 of illness. This case highlights the importance of close coordination between clinicians and public health authorities at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as the need for rapid dissemination of clinical information related to the care of patients with this emerging infection.

"On December 31, 2019, China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in people associated with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, Hubei Province.1On January 7, 2020, Chinese health authorities confirmed that this cluster was associated with a novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV.2 Although cases were originally reported to be associated with exposure to the seafood market in Wuhan, current epidemiologic data indicate that person-to-person transmission of 2019-nCoV is occurring.3-6 As of January 30, 2020, a total of 9976 cases had been reported in at least 21 countries,7 including the first confirmed case of 2019-nCoV infection in the United States, reported on January 20, 2020. Investigations are under way worldwide to better understand transmission dynamics and the spectrum of clinical illness. This report describes the epidemiologic and clinical features of the first case of 2019-nCoV infection confirmed in the United States."

Digital facsimile from nejm.org at this link.

This article was published in Nature on 3 February 2020. Prior to that a version with a different title and numerous other co-authors was published in bioRxiv on 23 January 2020, as "Discovery of a novel coronavirus associated with a recent pneumonia outbreak in humans and its potential bat origin". The publication date of  23 January 2020 makes this paper the earliest scientific paper  published in a Western language describing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Order of authorship in the original publication: Zhou, Yang, Zheng. 

Abstract of the paper as it appeared in Nature on 3 February 2020:

"Since the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) 18 years ago, a large number of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs) have been discovered in their natural reservoir host, bats 1,2,3,4. Previous studies have shown that some bat SARSr-CoVs have the potential to infect humans 5,6,7. Here we report the identification and characterization of a new coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which caused an epidemic of acute respiratory syndrome in humans in Wuhan, China. The epidemic, which started on 12 December 2019, had caused 2,794 laboratory-confirmed infections including 80 deaths by 26 January 2020. Full-length genome sequences were obtained from five patients at an early stage of the outbreak. The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus. Pairwise protein sequence analysis of seven conserved non-structural proteins domains show that this virus belongs to the species of SARSr-CoV. In addition, 2019-nCoV virus isolated from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of a critically ill patient could be neutralized by sera from several patients. Notably, we confirmed that 2019-nCoV uses the same cell entry receptor—angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2)—as SARS-CoV."

Open access from nature.com at this link.

The first American monograph on surgery on the human brain, also published in 1885 the Transactions of the American Surgical Association. Roberts was "one of the few American surgeons to advocate an aggressive exploratory approach to cranial fractures in an effort to avoid consequences such as infection, delayed seizures, and insanity. In his 1885 article in the Transactions of the American Surgical Association titled “The Field and Limitation of the Operative Surgery of the Human Brain,” he predicted that with antiseptic precautions and the growing knowledge of cerebral localization, operations on the brain would become commonplace. This work predated that of Horsley, Keen, and many others." (James L. Stone,"John Bingham Roberts and the first American monograph on human brain surgery," Neurosurgery, 49 (2001) 974-985).

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

Second edition by Weir and Albert Mudrey, Otorhinolarygngology: An illustrated history, Ashford, UK: Headley Brothers, 2013.

Includes the earliest record in the English of the origin and growth of veterinary literature. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"Part I: Adaptation and disease". The Croonian Lectures delivered in June 1917. Includes "Adaptation in the bacteria and the evolution of the infectious diseases" and "Adaptation to disease-producing agencies in the higher animals."

"Part II: Heredity and adaptation." This is a collection of related papers previously published.

Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

(Thanks to Robert L. Chevalier for this reference.)

Order of authorship in the original publication: Harper, Zuckerman, Harper, Kingston, Armelagos.

Abstract:

The first American book specifically on the topic of medical sociology. Digital facsimile from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Virchow was one of the first to identify medicine as a social science. He developed a theory of epidemics that emphasized the social circumstances permitting spread of illness. This approach has been called sociological epidemiology. Virchow began this approach in this study of the 1848 typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia  He also applied similar perspectives to a cholera epidemic in Berlin and to an outbreak of tuberculosis in Berlin during 1848 and 1849.

Virchow's analysis of the epidemic emphasized the economic, social, and cultural factors involved, and clearly identified the contradictory social forces that prevented any simple solution. Instead of recommending medical changes such as more doctors or hospitals, he outlined a revolutionary program of social reconstruction, including full employment, higher wages, the establishment of agricultural cooperatives, universal education, and the disestablishment of the Catholic Church.

"For this research, Virchow argued that defects of society formed a necessary condition for the emergence of epidemics. Virchow classified certain disease entities as “crowd diseases" or "artificial diseases"; these included typhus, scurvy, tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera, relapsing fever and some mental disorders. According to this analysis, inadequate social conditions increased the population's susceptibility to climate, infectious agents and other specific causal factors - none of which alone was sufficient to produce an epidemic. For the prevention and eradication of epidemics, social change was as important as medical intervention, if not more so: "The improvement of medicine would eventually prolong human life, but improvement of social conditions could achieve this result even more rapidly and successfully."⁸ Health workers deluded themselves to think that effects within the medical sphere alone would ameliorate these problems. The advocacy of social solutions thus became the necessary complement of clinical work.

"The social contradictions that Virchow emphasized most strongly were those of class structure. For example, he noted that morbidity and mortality rates, and especially infant mortality rates, were much higher in working-class districts of cities than in wealthier areas. As documentation he used the statistics that Engels cited⁷ as well as data he gathered for German cities. Describing inadequate housing, nutrition and clothing, Virchow criticized the apathy of government officials for ignoring these root causes of illness. Virchow expressed his outrage about class conditions most forcefully in his discussion of epidemics like the cholera outbreak in Berlin:

Is it not clear that our struggle is a social one, that our job is not to write instructions to upset the consumers of melons and salmon, of cakes and ice cream, in short, the comfortable bourgeoisie, but is to create institutions to protect the poor, who have no soft bread, no good meat, no warm clothing, and no bed, and who through their work cannot subsist on rice soup and camomile tea... ? May the rich remember during the winter, when they sit in front of their hot stoves and give Christmas apples to their little ones, that the ship hands who brought the coal and the apples died from cholera. It is so sad that thousands always must die in misery, so that a few hundred may live well.

"For Virchow, the deprivations of working-class life created a susceptibility to disease. When infectious organisms, climatic changes, famine or other causal factors were present, disease occurred in individuals and spread rapidly through the community. ...(Waitzkin, H. "Classics in Social Medicine. One and a half centuries of forgetting and rediscovering: Virchow's lasting contributions to social medicine," Social medicine 1 (2006) Digital text available from socialmedicine.info at this link.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Translated into English by L. J. Rather in Virchow, Collected papers on epidemiology and public health I (1985) 205-319.

Virchow "articulated that the moral goal of the political role of medicine was to become an active agent in eliminating social inequality" (Dorothy Porter, Doctors, the state and the ethics of political medical practice [2007]). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.  Translated into English by L. J. Rather as Collected essays on public health and epidemiology. 2 vols. Canton, MA: Science History Publications, 1985.

Stillman was personal physician to Leland Stanford, the first governor of California, and was a partner of railroad magnate Mark Hopkins from their days on board a ship to California in 1849. Stillman was also co-founder of the first hospital in California, in Sacramento, 1849. 

Stillman began his paper as follows:

"The emigration which took place from the United States to California, in the year subsequent to the discovery of gold in that country, will be remembered as one of the most remarkable events of this century. If we consider the character and number of the emigrants, the distance traversed, the hardships and privations endured, and the magnificent results attained, the event has no parallel in history.

"The number who arrived in California during the six months from the first July, 1849, to 1st of January 1850, was over 90,000; of these nearly 30,0000 performed a voyage by sea of 17,000 miles, more than 60,000 crossed a wilderness of greater extent than the entire distance from the mouth of the Tagus to the eastern confines of Russia, over arid plains and rugged mountains. Of this number, it was roughly estimated that one-fifth had found graves within the first six months after their arrival. An investigation of the circumstances that conspired to such a result constitutes a subject of extreme interest and importance.

"There has been no effort made by medical men conversant with the facts to give them to the public, that I am aware of; and as the most confused and conflicting views were entertained with regard to the nature and origin of the diseases that caused such remarkable fatality, I have been induced to give the results of my own observation, made during the summer of 1849, in the Sacramento Valley...."

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Digital facsimile from the U.S. National Library of Medicine at this link.

"In 1840, Griffin was appointed assistant surgeon in the Army and served under General William J. Worth in Florida and, with the rank of captain, on the Southwest frontier at Fort Gibson, Griffin came to California for the first time with General Kearney on the trek from New Mexico in 1846. He was stationed in San Diego and in Los Angeles in charge of the military hospitals, visited the California Gold Country during the 1849 Gold Rush and was stationed in Benicia until 1852. In that period he was given duty in an expedition against the Yuma Indians on the Colorado River. He was assigned to Washington, D.C., in 1853 and resigned from the service in 1854.^[3][4][7]

"Doctor Griffin's story concerns the hardships endured by General Kearney's small force as it crossed the unknown and trackless deserts, and it recounts what took place in the battles of San Pascual, San Gabriel, La Mesa and Los Angeles, and reveals his methods of treatment for wounds and diseases afflicting the soldiers in his charge. The narrative is most interesting.^[8]

"Before joining the Army, Griffin practiced for three years in Louisville, Kentucky, and returned to Los Angeles after he left the service.^[3][4] In Griffin's obituary, the Los Angeles Times noted that:

"Physicians were scarce in those days, and a man with a university education and seventeen years' experience as army surgeon and general pratictioner was instantly welcomed and called to minister to the ailments of all the best people around. Like a circuit rider he journeyed up and down Southern California to answer to the calls of American settlers and Spanish patrons.^[3]

"Griffin is said to have been the "second pioneer educated physician to arrive in Los Angeles," the first being Richard Den, who came in 1843.^[4]

"One of his staff was Bridget (Biddy) Mason, who worked for him as a midwife and nurse, becoming known for her herbal remedies. She earned $2.50 a day, considered a good wage for African-American women at that time. In 1856, Mason had been declared a person "free forever" in a successful suit she filed as a slave brought from slave-holding Texas into the free state of California in 1851. The judge rendering the decision was Benjamin Hayes, the brother of Griffin's wife.^[10][11]"

^{(Wikipedia article on John Strother Griffin, accessed 4-2020)}

Digital facsimile from militarymuseum.org at this link.

This was probably the first book on female health and hygiene published in California and intended for the residents of the state. The book was written for women rather than for medical professionals. Little is known of Joshua Harrison Stallard other than that he was a provincial medical practitioner who moved to London and campaigned for improvement in metropolitan workhouses. Stallard apparently wrote this book after a relatively brief visit to California where he recognized the need for information of this kind. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Concerns the influence of Alexander von Humboldt on early California physicians. Library Associates of the University Library, Davis, Keepsake No. 4.

Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

"From online journal clubs to 'tweetorials' to conference updates, social media is changing the dissemination and discussion of biomedicine."

Open access from nature.com at this link.  Reprinted by scientificamerican.com on April 1, 2020 at this link.

"Native Americans long resisted Western medicine--but had less power to resist the threat posed by Western diseases. And so, as the Office of Indian Affairs reluctantly entered the business of health and medicine, Native peoples reluctantly began to allow Western medicine into their communities. Fighting Invisible Enemies traces this transition among inhabitants of the Mission Indian Agency of Southern California from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century.

"What historian Clifford E. Trafzer describes is not so much a transition from one practice to another as a gradual incorporation of Western medicine into Indian medical practices. Melding indigenous and medical history specific to Southern California, his book combines statistical information and documents from the federal government with the oral narratives of several tribes. Many of these oral histories--detailing traditional beliefs about disease causation, medical practices, and treatment--are unique to this work, the product of the author's close and trusted relationships with tribal elders.

"Trafzer examines the years of interaction that transpired before Native people allowed elements of Western medicine and health care into their lives, homes, and communities. Among the factors he cites as impelling the change were settler-borne diseases, the negative effects of federal Indian policies, and the sincere desire of both Indians and agency doctors and nurses to combat the spread of disease. Here we see how, unlike many encounters between Indians and non-Indians in Southern California, this cooperative effort proved positive and constructive, resulting in fewer deaths from infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis" (publisher).

"Despite a recent resurgence in studies of death and disease in native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, little work has been done on death and disease in Native Americans during the reservation period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Forgotten Voices: Death Records of the Yakama, 1888-1964 begins a discussion of the health of the people on the Yakama Reservation in Washington using statistical data. This is the first detailed work that focuses on the causes of death on American Indian reservations. It contains an extensive introduction to Yakama history and lifestyle, and tables that present statistical information on the major causes of death. Each chapter highlights a different cause of death on the Yakama Reservation, including

• Tuberculosis
• Pneumonia
• Heart Disease
• Gastrointestinal Problems
• Influenza
• Cancer
• Birth Complications
• Old Age
• Stroke" (publisher)

"Indigenous people of wisdom have offered prayers of power, protection, and healing since the dawn of time. From Wovoka, the Ghost Dance prophet, to contemporary healer Kenneth Coosewoon, medicine people have called on the spiritual world to help humans in their relationships with each other and the natural world. Many American Indians—past and present—have had the ability to use power to access wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual understanding.

"This groundbreaking collection provides fascinating stories of wisdom, spiritual power, and forces within tribal communities that have influenced the past and may influence the future. Through discussions of omens, prophecies, war, peace, ceremony, ritual, and cultural items such as masks, prayer sticks, sweat lodges, and peyote, this volume offers examples of the ways in which Native American beliefs in spirits have been and remain a fundamental aspect of history and culture. Drawing from written and oral sources, the book offers readers a greater understanding of creation narratives, oral histories, and songs that speak of healers, spirits, and power from tribes across the North American continent" (publisher).

"Called the Mvskoke in their language, the Creek Indians of Oklahoma continue to practice traditional medicine. In Creek Indian Medicine Ways, David Lewis, a full-blood Mvskoke and practicing medicine man, tells about the medicine tradition that has shaped his life. Born into a family of medicine people, he was chosen at birth to carry on the tradition. He shares his memories here about his childhood training and initiation as a medicine man as well as his remembrances about his father and grandmother, who trained him. Lewis reveals part of the sacred story of the origin of plants and he identifies some of the plants he uses in his cures. He also describes several of the ceremonies his teachers taught him, stressing throughout the sacredness and importance of Mvskoke medicine.

"Ann T. Jordan, a Euroamerican anthropologist, documents the place of Lewis's medicine family in the written record. Lewis is the great grandson of Jackson Lewis, who was interviewed in 1910 by anthropologist John Swanton. Jackson Lewis is mentioned numerous times in Swanton's classic works on Mvskoke medicine and culture, published by the Bureau of American Ethnology in the 1920s. David Lewis is the direct inheritor of his great grandfather's medicine knowledge" (publisher).

Abstract:

"There is a global epidemic of chronic kidney disease (CKD) characterized by a progressive loss of nephrons, ascribed in large part to a rising incidence of hypertension, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes mellitus. There is a ten-fold variation in nephron number at birth in the general population, and a 50% overall decrease in nephron number in the last decades of life. The vicious cycle of nephron loss stimulating hypertrophy by remaining nephrons and resulting in glomerulosclerosis has been regarded as maladaptive, and only partially responsive to angiotensin inhibition. Advances over the past century in kidney physiology, genetics, and development have elucidated many aspects of nephron formation, structure and function. Parallel advances have been achieved in evolutionary biology, with the emergence of evolutionary medicine, a discipline that promises to provide new insight into the treatment of chronic disease.

"This review provides a framework for understanding the origins of contemporary developmental nephrology, and recent progress in evolutionary biology. The establishment of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), ecological developmental biology (eco-devo), and developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) followed the discovery of the hox gene family, the recognition of the contribution of cumulative environmental stressors to the changing phenotype over the life cycle, and mechanisms of epigenetic regulation. The maturation of evolutionary medicine has contributed to new investigative approaches to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and infectious disease, and promises the same for CKD. By incorporating these principles, developmental nephrology is ideally positioned to answer important questions regarding the fate of nephrons from embryo through senescence."

Abstract:

"Progressive kidney disease follows nephron loss, hyperfiltration, and incomplete repair, a process described as “maladaptive.” In the past 20 years, a new discipline has emerged that expands research horizons: evolutionary medicine. In contrast to physiologic (homeostatic) adaptation, evolutionary adaptation is the result of reproductive success that reflects natural selection. Evolutionary explanations for physiologically maladaptive responses can emerge from mismatch of the phenotype with environment or from evolutionary tradeoffs. Evolutionary adaptation to a terrestrial environment resulted in a vulnerable energy-consuming renal tubule and a hypoxic, hyperosmolar microenvironment. Natural selection favors successful energy investment strategy: energy is allocated to maintenance of nephron integrity through reproductive years, but this declines with increasing senescence after w40 years of age. Risk factors for chronic kidney disease include restricted fetal growth or preterm birth (life history tradeoff resulting in fewer nephrons), evolutionary selection for APOL1 mutations (which provide resistance to trypanosome infection, a tradeoff), and modern life experience (Western diet mismatch leading to diabetes and hypertension). Current advances in genomics, epigenetics, and developmental biology have revealed proximate causes of kidney disease, but attempts to slow kidney disease remain elusive. Evolutionary medicine provides a complementary approach by addressing ultimate causes of kidney disease. Marked variation in nephron number at birth, nephron heterogeneity, and changing susceptibility to kidney injury throughout the life history are the result of evolutionary processes. Combined application of molecular genetics, evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), developmental programming, and life history theory may yield new strategies for prevention and treatment of chronic kidney disease."

Available from kireports.org at this link.