Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 309

Albers-Schönberg disease is the most common form of osteopetrosis.

Also known as autosomal dominant osteopetrosis type II (ADO II). Heinrich Ernst Albers-Schönberg (1865 – 1921) was a German radiologist and named the disease in 1904.

Osteopetrosis is a group of conditions characterized by increased skeletal mass due to impaired bone and cartilage resorption

Other names include: Marble bone disease or ‘`marmorknochenkrankheit’; ‘morbo marmoreo’; ‘os de marbre’

Reference: Albers-Schönberg disease – LITFL

George W. Bush (1946 -)

I imagine he was on most people’s shortlist for this great, October 2000 contribution to the understanding of medicine…

To stimulate urine flow in non-obstructive renal failure.

The technique was first described in 1897 by Robert Coleman Kemp (1865 – 1918).

Sir William Osler (1849-1919) writes of anuria and kidney injury in his textbook ‘The Principles and Practice of Medicine’…

In the obstructive cases surgical interference should be resorted to. In the non-obstructive cases, particularly when due to extreme congestion of the kidney, cupping over the loins, hot applications, free purging, and sweating with pilocarpine and hot air are indicated. When the secretion is once started diuretin often acts well. Large hot irrigations, with normal salt solution, with Kemp’s double-current rectal tubes, should be tried, as they are stated to stimulate the activity of the kidneys in a remarkable way.

Osler 1904: 851

Reference:

• Kemp RC. Indications for the use of the double-current rectal irrigator. New York medical journal 1897; 65: 346-353
• Osler W. The principles and practice of medicine. 1904: 851

Karel Frederik Wenckebach (1864 – 1940)

In 1898 Karel Wenckebach consulted a 40-year-old woman with an irregular pulse which he interrogated using a sphygmogram and tuning fork. He noted there were regular pauses every 3 to 4 beats, but the small extra pulse seen during pauses were longer, and subsequent intervals were smaller. The first interval after each pause was longer, and subsequent intervals were shorter.

However, Wenckebach credited Luigi Luciani (1840 – 1919) as the first to describe this recurrent pattern in his 1873 frog heart experiments and defined this form of group beating as ‘Luciani’schen Perioden’ (Luciani periods)

Wenckebach’s figure demonstrates a constant atrial rate (top line) with diagonal lines (representing AV conduction) progressively lengthening before a beat being missed/dropped. This is followed by the recommencement of the cycle. With the advent of electrocardiography in the early 20th century, this form of group beating became known as ‘Wenckebach periodicity‘ and later as ‘Mobitz type I atrioventricular block‘.

Reference:

• History of AV block – LITFL
• Luciani L. Eine periodische Function des isolirten Froschherzens [A periodic function of the isolated frog heart]. Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig. 1873;25:11–94.
• Wenckebach KF. Zur Analyse des unregelmässigen Pulses [On the analysis of irregular pulses] Zeitschrift Für Klinische Medizin. [I 1899; 36: 181-199] [II 1899; 37: 475–488] [III 1900; 39: 293-305] [IV 1902: 44: 218-225]

**Note: The true title of Wenckebach’s work is “Zur Analyse des unregelmässigen Pulses” rather than the copy and past version found through the internet of “Zur Analyse des unregelmassigne Pulses”. The correct title will lead the reader to be able to review all four sections of the body of work as referenced above.

Phrygian cap or liberty cap is a soft conical cap with the apex bent over, associated in antiquity with several peoples in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, including Phrygia, Dacia, and the Balkans. During the French Revolution it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty.

A Phrygian cap is a congenital anomaly of the gallbladder with an incidence of 4% and has no pathological significance or symptoms.