Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with February 15.

Events

1872 – George Huntington (1850-1916) gave his classic presentation On Chorea at the Meigs and Mason Academy of Medicine, Middleport, Ohio at the age of 22.

1921 – Evan O’Neill Kane (1864–1932), a Pennsylvania country surgeon and railway accident specialist, performed a self-appendicectomy under local anaesthesia at Kane Summit Hospital. Kane infiltrated cocaine with adrenaline, operated while propped to view the field, and published the case to argue that major surgery could be safely tolerated without general anaesthesia.

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Births

1755 – Jean-Nicolas Corvisart des Marets (1755-1821), French physician; described Corvisart disease

1829– Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), American physician. Described Causalgia (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome), Phantom Limb, Mitchell’s Syndrome (Erythromelalgia) and Mitchell’s Rest Cure. Weir Mitchell provided an early description of tendon hammer and tendon reflexes in 1859 as a ‘peculiar contraction‘, ahead of Wilhelm Heinrich Erb and Carl Westphal in 1875

1858 – Augustin Nicolas Gilbert (1858-1927), French physician; described Gilbert syndrome (1901)

1859 – Giovanni Mingazzini (1859-1929), Italian neurologist. Described Mingazzini sign (1913) and the Mingazzini manoeuvre (1916).

1871 – Frank Cecil Eve (1871-1952), English physician; described Eve’s rocking method of artificial respiration (1932)

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Deaths

1634 – Wilhelm Fabricius von Hilden (1560-1634), German neurosurgeon. Provided first descriptions for Richter Hernia, neurofibromata of von Recklinghausen disease (1606), talus fracture (1608), pyloric stenosis (1610)

1919 – Pieter Klazes Pel (1852-1919), Dutch physician; described Pel-Ebstein fever (1885, 1887)

1973 – Charles Frederick Morris Saint (1886-1973), English-born South African surgeon; described Saint’s triad (1946)

1985 – Charles Theodore Dotter (1920-1985), American radiologist. Father of interventional radiology, performed the first intentional percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (1964)

1993 – José Manuel Rivero Carvallo (1905-1993), Mexican cardiologist; described Rivero-Carvallo manouver / sign (1946)

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Further reading

• Kane EO. Autoappendectomy.(A case history). The International journal of surgery. 1921; 34(3): 100-102.
• Cadogan M. Auto-appendicectomy. LITFL