Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with December 19.

Events

1622 – Swiss midwife-surgeon Marie Colinet (1560-1640) reduced and stabilised displaced fracturesfollowing a sword injury. Her husband Wilhelm Fabry (Hildanus) published the case as one of the earliest detailed surgical procedures attributed to a woman.

On December 19, 1622, a man named Michel Dilberger fell backwards on the hilt of his sword and broke the ninth and tenth left ribs near the spine with protruding fragments. After preparing everything needed for the operation, she returned the broken bones to their natural position. Then anointed the whole side with rosacea oil, applied a poultice of barley flour mixed with rose powder, wild pomegranate flowers, cypress nuts and root, powdered tormentil and a whole egg, put on wooden ribs and a pad to hold the fractured bones in place, and wrapped a moderately tight bandage around it

Fabry 1622

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Births

1850 – Camille Biot (1850-1918), French physician; described Biot respiration (1876)

1922 – W. Robert Harris (1922-2005), Canadian Orthopaedic Surgeon; described Salter-Harris Classification (1963)

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Deaths

1977 – José Luis Bado (1903-1977), Uruguayan surgeon; described Bado Classification (1958) of Monteggia fractures

1979 – Ralph Milton Waters (1883-1979), American anesthesiologist; founder of the first academic program in anesthesiology, at the University of Wisconsin. Invented the Waters Airway (1930), Waters To-and-Fro Carbon Dioxide Absorption Canister (1923), and the Guedel-Waters Cuffed intratracheal tube (1928)

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Further reading

• De felicissima curatione fractur ae Costarum, in qua nonnulla Annotatione digna occurrunt. Centuria V, Observatio; LXXXV: 1682: 474
• Morgan R. Marie Colinet von Hilden (c1560-c1640). LITFL