Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with December 10.

Events

1961 – John (Jack) Handyside Barnes (1922-1985) captured a tiny, box-shaped jellyfish at Palm Cove and then (in typically Queensland fashion) deliberately stung himself, a boy aged nine (his son Nick Barnes), and a lifesaver (C.R.) to reproduce the syndrome and link the creature to Irukandji syndrome. The experiment turned a decades-old mystery into an identified envenomation problem, and the species was later named Carukia barnesi in his honour

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Births

1817 – Alexander Wood (1817-1884), Scottish physician; popularised subcutaneous (hypodermic) injection for the treatment of neuralgia (1853)

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Deaths

1759 – René-Jacques Croissant de Garengeot (1688-1759), French surgeon; described De Garengeot’s Hernia (1731) and La Clef de Garengeot

1995 – Edward Harry Bishop (1913-1995), American obstetrician and gynecologist; defined the Bishop Score (1964) and uterine tocolysis (1961) 

2008 – John Brereton Barlow (1924-2008), South African cardiologist; described Barlow syndrome (1968), (primary billowing mitral leaflet syndrome (BMLS)) 

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Further reading

• Barnes JH. Cause and Effect in Irukandji Stingings. Med J Aust. 1964 Jun 13;1:897-904.
• Kim S. How Cairns doctor Jack Barnes discovered Irukandji jellyfish by stinging himself and his 10-year-old son. ABC, 2024
• Nickson C. Jack Barnes and the Irukandji Enigma. LITFL