[Johann Lucas Schönlein (1793-1864), a researcher and clinician]. / Johann Lucas Schönlein (1793-1864), Forscher und Kliniker.

From 1833 to 1840, Johann Lucas Schönlein, a native of Bamberg, Germany, was Professor of Internal Medicine at the newly created University of Zurich, Switzerland. His career and professional personality are described succintly in this paper. Schönlein was a most successful clinical teacher. He was the first German professor to teach at Würzburg, 1819-1832) clinical percussion and auscultation. On the other hand, he obviously hated writing and publishing. His 3 important discoveries, all made during his years in Zurich, were published on a total of 3 printed pages: so-called typhoid crystals in patients' stools (1836), "peliosis rheumatica" (1837), and - most important - the causative agent of favus (1839), a fungus later named Achorion schoenleinii. This was the first instance of a human disease that could be clearly attributed to the action of a micro-organism.

[The Graefe memorial stone--in memory of A. von Graefe's contributions in Heiden]. / Der Graefe-Stein--eine Erinnerung an A. von Graefes Wirken in Heiden.

Between 1859 and 1869, Albrecht von Graefe used to spend some weeks in September in Heiden, a small health resort in Eastern Switzerland. During his "holidays", however, the hotel "Freihof", where he lived, was transformed into a most active unit of ophthalmic surgery. A memorial stone, rediscovered and restored thanks to the endeavour of Professor Peter Speiser of St. Gallen, remembers this episode, which was of some importance not only for local tourism, but also for the young Swiss ophthalmology of the time.

[Felix Platter (1536-1614) as ophthalmologist]. / Felix Platter (1536-1614) als Augenarzt.

Felix Platter, physician and anatomist, had a keen interest in ophthalmology, too. By his wife, he was related to a family of surgeons; this may have brought him into closer contact with eye diseases and their cure. Platter was the first physician to attribute the sensory power of the eye to the retina and a purely optical function to the lens (humor crystallinus). The present author mentions two original observations of his: the symptomatology of posterior vitreous detachment (observed in his own myopic left eye) and a case of blindness due to compression of the optic nerves by a cranial tumour (tuberculoma). In a more comprehensive way, he discusses Platter's ideas on cataract (suffusio) and its treatment. Platter observed congenital cataract and was the first to notice that professional working near a fire (as in the case of alchemists!) may eventually lead to cataract (glass-workers' cataract, according to modern terminology).

[The physician in the Greek city]. / Le médecin dans la cité grecque.

In the cities of ancient Greece, as well as later in Rome, the doctor's responsibility was already a controversial subject. The practice of healing was not subject to any official regulation: no protection of good physicians, no punishment of malpractice. While physicians often lead an itinerant life, cities endeavoured to secure the presence of a good one by appointing him town or public physician on the basis of a one-year contract. This did not mean, however, a "health service" free of charge for patients. The variety of healing persons including midwives and medicals slaves is reviewed. Some short texts which were added in later times to the "Works of Hippocrates" ("Physician", "Precepts", "Decorum") provide us with some information on a physician's daily life (see also H.M. Koelbing, The Hippocratic physician at his patient's bedside, in Practitioner 224, 1980, 551-554). From Hippocrates ("Prognostic") to the hellenistic period ("Decorum"), we note an important change as to the revelation of a bad prognosis: Hippocrates advocates the blunt information of the patient when there is no hope for him; but his follower in a later century takes into consideration the patient's psychology. He hides the cruel truth from him while informing openly his relatives and near friends. This is the first time in history we come across the principle of the doctor's double truth, strongly, advocated e.g. by Thomas Percival in his "Medical Ethics" (1803), but much disputed today.

[Does the mind drift where it wants? Requirements for medical discoveries]. / Weht der Geist, wo er will? Voraussetzungen medizinischer Entdeckungen.

In medical discoveries, two elements may be distinguished: (1) the state of science and the available methods and tools of research at a given moment, and (2) the personal and original intellectual achievement. The relative importance of these two factors is discussed in the light of historical examples. It is apparently rare that a discovery results more or less automatically from a given state of science and research (as in the case of insulin). Nearly always the personality of the research worker turns out to be the determinant factor. Essential traits of this personality are an independent mind capable of liberating itself from dogmatic tenets universally accepted by the scientific community; the capacity and courage to look at things from a new angle; powers of combination, intuition and imagination; feu sacré and perseverance--in short, intellectual as well as moral qualities. The personality of a great scientific discoverer, furthermore, integrates the spirit of his epoch into his individuality. About half the research workers considered here were aged below 35 at the time of their discoveries. The author therefore hopes that our universities will, in the future, provide opportunities for young research workers as well as for somewhat older individualists.

[The history of color theories]. / Zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre.

The origins of color theories are closely linked to the Greeks' theories of vision. Plato explained vision as a combined action of light from within (i.e. from the eye) and light from without: this view was, in a certain sense, revived by Goethe. Aristotle, on the other hand, defined vision as the passive reception, by the eye, of an action originating in objects: thus, he was the originator of scientific optics, as propounded 2000 years later by Newton. The present author compares Newton's experimental analysis of spectral colors produced by triangular glass prisms with Goethe's more intuitive theory of the primordial phenomena (Urphänomene) of color vision. Apparently, Goethe started from the same point as Newton: experimentation with optical prisms. But he looked, as it were, in the opposite direction: he did not examine the objective image formed by a prism but described what he himself perceived when looking through a prism. It was this subjective image which he analyzed and on which he built his own color theory. The direction of his argument was fixed right from the beginning: from the very first glance through his prism he was convinced--by intuition, not by reflection--that Newton must have been wrong. No wonder this prejudice led him astray! However, Goethe's careful and skillful analysis of the subjective perception of light and colors bore other fruits. Under the heading of "physiological colors" he describes, in his "Farbenlehre", some important phenomena of visual physiology such as simultaneous and successive color contrasts.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

A century of psychiatry.

This sketch of the history of psychiatry since 1886 comprises the following points: cocaine addiction; psychoanalysis; sexology; psychiatric clinics and their recent abolition in Italy; nosology; heredity and environmental factors in mental disease; therapeutics.

[Boldness and caution: Jacques Daviel's approach to cataract extraction (1745-1752)]. / Kühnheit und Umsicht: Jacques Daviels Weg zur Star-Extraktion (1745-1752).

The introduction of cataract extraction by Jacques Daviel, in 1752/53, appears to us as a revolutionary step in eye surgery. It should be realized, however, that this achievement was not only the result of intuition and bold decision in critical situations, but also of careful evaluation, over seven years, of extraction vs. the best modifications of the time-honored needle operation. This included anatomical examination of the effects of needling (couching of the lens) in isolated eyes.