
John Snow
John Snow (1813-1858), English physician. Pioneer of anaesthesia and epidemiology. Defined etherization stages and traced cholera outbreaks to contaminated water in London.

John Snow (1813-1858), English physician. Pioneer of anaesthesia and epidemiology. Defined etherization stages and traced cholera outbreaks to contaminated water in London.

Macdonald Critchley (1900–1997): Pioneering neurologist of higher brain function; author of The Parietal Lobes; leader, teacher, and medical humanist.

History of neuraxial anaesthesia: milestones in spinal and epidural blockade from Koller and Corning to Quincke, Bier, Tuohy and Curbelo.

Angelo Luigi Soresi (1877–1951), Italian-born American surgeon who described peridural (epidural) anaesthesia and an early “hanging drop” endpoint for locating the epidural space (1932).

William Seaman Bainbridge (1870-1947), American surgeon, cancer educator, naval physician and early advocate of spinal analgesia in children.

Achille Mario Dogliotti (1897-1966), Italian surgeon. Pioneer of epidural anaesthesia (Dogliotti’s principle), pain therapy, cardiac surgery, and total extracorporeal blood circulation

Auto-appendicectomy: three landmark self-appendectomy cases—Kane (1921), McLaren (1944), Rogozov (1961)—and what they reveal about surgery in extremis.

Fernand Cathelin (1873–1960), Paris urologist who pioneered caudal epidural anaesthesia (Cathelin’s method) and designed the urine-divider and air cystoscope.

Charles T Dotter (1920–1985): father of interventional radiology; coronary imaging pioneer, 1964 angioplasty, catheter thrombolysis, and stents.

Théodore Tuffier (1857–1929): Paris surgeon and innovator; thoracic/cardiac pioneer, early open-chest massage, valve experiments, spinal anaesthesia and Tuffier’s line.

Cardio-biliary reflex (“Cope sign”): gallbladder disease causing vagal bradycardia or AV block that mimics cardiac events, often with normal troponin.

Learn or Blame explores cognitive bias, just culture and human factors in adverse event review, showing why healthcare can either learn or blame, not both.