Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with March 24.

Events

1830 – Jacques Lisfranc (1787-1847) presented to the Académie de Médecine his results on perineal excision of the lower rectum for carcinoma following the first planned rectal cancer resection (1826) and his subsequent series of 10 low rectal resections.

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Births

1791 – Charles Gabriel Pravaz (1791–1853), French orthopaedic surgeon. The seringue de Pravaz was an early controlled injection device and precursor to the hypodermic syringe.

1864 – Karel Frederik Wenckebach (1864-1940), Dutch physician; described Mobitz type I (Wenckebach block); Wenckebach phenomenon; Wenckebach sign and Wenckebach pills

1886 – Johannes Laurentius Augustinus Peutz (1886-1957), Dutch physician; described Peutz-Jeghers syndrome (1921)

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Deaths

1889 – Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818-1889), Dutch ophthalmologist; described Donders Law (1847), the Space of Donders (1867), Mental Chronometry (Donders Subtraction Method), and invented the Donders Ophthalmotrope (1845)

1889 – Charles James Blasius Williams (1805-1889), British physician; described Williams sign of adherent pericarditis (1840)

1928 – Walther Carl Eduard Kausch (1867-1928), German surgeon; performed the first successful partial pancreatoduodenectomy (1907) [Kausch-Whipple operation]

1936 – Josef Jadassohn (1863-1936), German dermatologist; described Jadassohn-Lewandowsky syndrome (pachyonychia congenita) (1906), épithélioma de Borst-Jadassohn (1926), Jadassohn-Tièche blue naevus, Jadassohn-Pellizzari anetoderma, and Patch Testing (“Jadassohn-Bloch Technique”) (1895)

1966 – Frederic Eugene Basil Foley (1891-1966), American urologist. Invented the Foley catheter (1929); Foley Operation (1937) [Foley Y-plasty pyeloplasty], Foley artificial urethral sphincter (1947), Foley rotatable resectoscope (1949), and Foley hydraulic operating table (1950)

2008 – Jørgen Reimers (1931-2008), Danish paediatric orthopaedic surgeon; defined the migration percentage (MP) in 1980

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Further reading

• Lisfranc J. Mémoire sur les cancers superficiels qu’on croyait profonds, et observations. Mémoires de l’Académie de Médecine. 1833; III: 20-28
• Viso L, Uriach J. The first twenty operations for rectal cancer. Int J Colorectal Dis. 1995; 10(3): 167-8.