John Cheyne

Biography

• Born 3 February 1777 Leith
• 1792-1795 Medical school, University of Edinburgh. His father being a surgeon, Cheyne was able to commence medical studies at 15 and graduate at 18…
• 1795-1799 Surgeon with an artillery corps. Served at the Battle of Vinegar Hill
• 1799-1810 Worked as a surgeon with his father
• 1811 – Worked in Meath Hospital, Dublin
• 1813-1819 – Professor of Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
• 1820 – Physician General to British forces in Ireland. Lecturer in War Medicine
• Died 31 January 1836

Key Medical Attributes

• 1812 – distinguished subarachnoid haemorrhage from intracerebral haemorrhage, and provided likely the first illustration of subarachnoid haemorrhage.
• 1818 – Described aorta steatomatous 
• 1818 – Described Cheyne-Stokes breathing

Medical Eponyms

• Cheyne-Stokes Respiration (1818)
  • Abnormal pattern of breathing which oscillates between hyperventilation and apnoea seen in the end stages of illness

Major Publications

• Cheyne J. A case of apoplexy in which the fleshy part of the heart was converted into fat. Dublin Hospital Reports. 1818;2:216-223. [Reprinted: Cardiac Classics. 1941;1:317-320] [Cheyne-Stokes Respiration]
• Cheyne J. Essays on the diseases of children: with cases and dissections. Essay I. Of cynanche trachealis, or croup. 1801
• Cheyne J. Essays on the diseases of children: with cases and dissections. Essay II. Of the bowel complaints; more immediately connected with the biliary secretion, adn particularly of atrophia ablactatorum or weaning brash. . 1808
• Cheyne J. Essays on the diseases of children: with cases and dissections. Essay III on hydrpcephalus acutus, or dropsy in the brain. 1808
• Cheyne J. Essays on the parital derangement of the mind in supposed connexion with religion. 1843

Controversies

• Cheyne was tutored at the University of Edinburgh by Alexander Munro (1733-1817), who described the interventricular foramen
• Hippocrates described Cheyne-Stokes breathing over two millennia earlier as ‘respiration throughout like that of a man recollecting himself, and rare, and large’.
• Cheyne suffered from depression towards the end of his life and wrote ‘Essays on the partial derangement of themind’ as a therapeutic exercise

References

• Willius FA, Keys TE. John Cheyne (1777-1836). Cardiac Classics. 1941;1:317-320
• Fletcher A, Moor D. The lives and works of John Cheyne (1777-1836) and William Stokes (1804-1878). J Intensive Care Soc. 2017 Nov;18(4):323-325. [PMC5661788]
• Pearce JMS. Cheyne-Stokes respiration. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2002;72:595.
• Lyons JB. John Cheyne’s classic monographs. Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 1995;4(1):27-35.