1799 - Medicine

Medicine

Digitalis is perceived to be related to heart disease for the first time by physician John Ferriar, who notes the effect of dried foxglove leaves on heart action and relegates to secondary importance the use of foxglove as a diuretic (see Withering, 1785).

An Inquiry Into the Symptoms and Causes of the Syncope Anginosa Commonly Called Angina Pectoris, illustrated by Dissections by Gloucestershire-born Bath physician and physiologist Caleb (Hillier) Parry, 44, pioneers understanding of the chest pains experienced in heart disease (see Heberdeen, 1768). Parry has conducted a series of experiments on sheep to study the effects of impairing vascular supply (see nitroglycerin, 1879).

English chemist Humphry Davy, 21, produces nitrous oxide ("laughing gas"), inhales 16 quarts of it, and finds that it makes him "absolutely intoxicated" and immune to pain. He suggests that the gas may have use as an anesthetic in minor surgery (see 1800; Wells, 1844).

Harvard Medical School professor Benjamin Waterhouse, now 35, administers the first U.S. vaccination against smallpox (see 1800; Jenner, 1798).

A Philadelphia jury finds journalist Thomas Cobbett guilty of libel against physician Benjamin Rush December 14 and orders him to pay Rush $5,000 (see 1793). Cobbett writes, "On the same day, and in the very same hour, that a ruinous fine was imposed on me for endeavoring to put a stop to the practice of Dr. Rush, General Washington was expiring under the operation of that very practice."