The “discovery” of how DNA is constructed is a complicated story best told elsewhere; but, the two men who concluded just how it is done are number 34 in our list of the 50 most influential doctors in history: Francis Crick and James Watson—except neither of them are medical doctors; so perhaps, shouldn’t be included in this particular list at all.
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We’re at number 35 in our countdown of the top 50 most influential doctors in history and have come to a physician born in a cave, at gunpoint, in Eastern Turkey where his parents were being held by revolutionary/outlaws determined to challenge the new Turkish government in Ankara.
Born “baby” Yaşargil on July 6, 1925 he went on to become Neurosurgery’s Man of the Century (1950–1999) for his revolutionary achievements and advancements in micro-surgery; but… we get ahead of ourselves.
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If Dr. George Papanicolaou isn’t considered with our list of the top 50 influential physicians of all time; then, who is?
I must confess that I must have said the words “Pap test” thousands of times in my training without once thinking about the man whose name those words were associated with.
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Dr. James Parkinson was born on World Parkinson’s Disease Day, April 11th 1755, in London, England. Of course he didn’t know it at the time. Come to think of it, neither did his parents; nor the fact that he would become one of the 50 most influential doctors of all time.
Affecting an estimated 1% of people over 60 years of age, what has come to be known as “Parkinson’s Disease” is one of the most common neurologic disorders known today.
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I live in no fear that telling you Dr. John Snow is one of history’s top 50 influential doctors will give even the slightest concern.
If it does, it means you really have no clue that he was the one who basically took Cholera off the front page of every newspaper and gave the world toilets, sewer systems and public works departments—world-wide.
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I read an article recently about the many medical breakthroughs the world would have missed if the detractors, naysayers and just plain and simple evil-intentioned haters had their way; and I decided to turn it into an article.
I’ve mentioned nine so far in the previous two parts including: Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis who was basically killed for suggesting his colleagues wash their hands; the vitriol made public by the new fangled internet against Dr. Prusiner over disease caused by proteins; and, the delay in cancer therapy caused by the “good ol’ boy’s.”
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In part one I already confessed to being in a profession full of egos which, like it or not, sometimes get in the way of rational consideration of things new or which are going against long used practices.
And I even asserted that pediatricians don’t have as much trouble with that as other specialists; proposing, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that it was because we were all used to dealing with adolescents whose very body language conveys that every adult around them “just doesn’t have a clue.”
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It’s one thing to live 102 years and witness two generations of medical advancements and still quite another to be the one who made many of those advances!
Further, it’s even more unusual when the Decagenarian set out to do nothing but “be a good doctor” yet ended up with over 750 articles, 12 books and, get this, TWO lifetime achievement awards—why not he saw almost two lifetimes come and go.
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Unfortunately, I’m in a profession where egos flair at the drop of a hat either through overwhelming skepticism, inordinate caution, debilitating fear of being wrong or as yet some unknown neurological or psychiatric condition.
I wish I was smart enough to write a definitive article on that, it would do the world a favor.
But I’m not, so this is not about that; it’s about the unfortunate result of all that—the often adolescent refusal to accept new knowledge when it is presented.
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I’m sorry to say that my profession is no different than others when it comes to EGO! At least it is now.
As pathetic as it sounds, a person’s tolerance or consideration of new information (even the true kind) hangs upon: where or even who it is coming from, how far it departs from what you already think you know, and perhaps even more importantly how the change will effect the person’s ego or pocketbook.
Our number 40, of the top 50 most influential doctors in history, is Dr. Lawrence Einhorn who has less written about him on the internet than any of previous 10 we’ve mentioned—even those dating back to nearly the dawn of medicine!
However, he is deserving of at least as many words on the internet as any of the others—he did invent an (almost) cure for testicular cancer after all!
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A man after my own heart, Dr. Robert Koch, one of the top 50 “influencers” of medicine of all time, loved to travel—except he had the where-with-all and time to actually do it.
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