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Eponyms
NameBirth placeEponymous ConditionsNotes
Addison, Thomas (1793-1860)Northumberland, England 
  • Addison's Disease 
  • Gave one of the first adequate accounts of appendicitis.
  • Threw himself from his balcony after a lifelong battle with depression. 
  • Alport, Arthur (1880-1959)Western Cape Province 
  • Alport's Syndrome 
  • Owned a small gold mine.
  • Responsible for Egyptian medical care reform. 
  • Blalock, Alfred (1899-1964)Culloden, Georgia 
  • Blalock-Taussig shunt 
  • The famous procedure was perfected by Vivien Thomas in the laboratory. Vivien Thomas instructed Dr. Blalock during the first Tetralogy of Fallot operation. 
  • Fallot, Etienne (1850-1911)Sète, France 
  • Tetralogy of Fallot
  • (Trilogy of Fallot)
  • (Pentalogy of Fallot) 
  • The Tetralogy of Fallot was first described by Niels Stensen in 1672. 
  • Goodpasture, Ernest William (1886-1960)Clarksville, Tennessee 
  • Goodpasture's Syndrome 
  • Developed method for cultivating viruses and rickettsiae in fertilized chicken eggs.
  • Demonstrated the viral nature of mumps.
  • Received his B.A. from Vanderbilt.
  • Received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins. 
  • Heberden, William (1710-1801)London, England 
  • Heberden's nodes
  • Heberden's disease 
  • Appointed as personal physician to the queen.
  • Wrote (in Latin) his recollections of every patient encounter and reviewed his notes at the end of each month in order to draw general conclusions.
  • Differentiated chickenpox from smallpox.
  • Noted that tuberculosis improved during pregnancy.
  • "What are those little hard knobs, about the size of a small pea, which are frequently seen upon the fingers, particularly a little below the top, near the joint? They have no connection with the gout, being found in persons who never had it, they continue for life, and being hardly ever attended with pain, or disposed to become sores, are rather unsightly, than inconvenient, though they must be some little hindrance to the free use of the fingers." 
  • Morgagni, Giovanni (1682-1771)Forli, Italy 
  • Morgagni's Hernia
  • Morgagni's Caruncle
  • Morgagni's Columns 
  • Father of modern anatomical pathology.
  • Quote: "For those who have dissected or inspected many, have at least learn’d to doubt when the others, who are ignorant of anatomy, and do not take the trouble to attend to it, are in no doubt at all." 
  • Nyhan, William (1926-) 
  • Lesch-Nyhan syndrome
  • Sakati-Nyhan-Tisdale syndrome 
  • With Michael Lesch, described Lesch-Nyhan syndrome at Johns-Hopkins (while Lesch was still a medical student). 
  • Rokitansky, Carl Freiherr von (1804-1878)Hradec Kralove, Bohemia 
  • Rokitansky-Aschoff Sinuses
  • Rokitansky-Cushing Ulcer
  • Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome 
  • The first edition of his major work was severely criticized by Virchow because of its references to humoral disease theory. After this, Rokitansky rewrote his book and never looked at the first edition again.
  • First to correctly describe patent ductus arteriosis as a congenital lesion.
  • Reported to have done 59,786 autopsies in his lifetime. 
  • Sydenham, Thomas (1624-1689)Dorset, England 
  • Sydenham's Chorea 
  • Became a physician at the age of 52! 
  • Taussig, Helen (1898-1986)Cambridge, Massachussetts 
  • Blalock-Taussig shunt
  • Taussig-Bing malformation 
  • One of the first women to obtain a professorship at Johns Hopkins.
  • Was dyslexic. 
  • Valsalva, Antonio (1666-1723)Imola, Italy 
  • Valsalva Maneuver
  • Valsalva's Sinuses
  • Valsalva's Antrum 
  • "Valsalva observed that the serum produced by gangrene was so acrid that, after tasting it, its extreme sourness irritated the papillae of his tongue for an entire day."
  • One of the first advocates for humanitarian treatment of the criminally insane.
  • Named the Eustachian tube for the Italian anatomist who first described it (Bartolomeo Eustachi). 
  • Virchow, Rudolf (1821-1902)Schiveilbein, Germany 
  • Virchow's Triad
  • Virchow's Node 
  • Quote: "Pathology also has its place in the science of biology, certainly a very honorable one, for to pathology we owe the realization that the contrast between health and disease is not to be sought in a fundamental difference of two kinds of life, nor in an alteration of essence, but only in an alteration of conditions."
  • To Virchow the body is a “cell state in which each cell is a citizen,” and he considered disease to be simply “a conflict between the citizens of the state, caused by outer forces.”
  • Elucidated the mechanism of thromboembolism. Quote: "The detachment of larger or smaller fragments from the end of the softening thrombus which are carried along by the current of blood and driven into remote vessels. This gives rise to the very frequent process on which I have bestowed the name of Embolia."
  • Quote: "There can be no scientific dispute with respect to faith, for science and faith exclude one another."
  • The first to identify leukemia.
  • Popularized Raspail's quote: "Omnis cellula e cellula" ("every cell originates from another cell" )
  • Developed one of two standard autopsy procedures still in use today.
  • After performing a nationwide racial survey of schoolchildren, Virchow concluded that there was no pure German race but only a mixture of different morphological types.
  • He leapt at the age of 81 from a moving tram and broke his hip. 
  • Whipple, Allen (1881-1963)Urmia, Iran 
  • Whipple's Triad
  • Whipple's Procedure 
  • Dr. Whipple himself developed pancreatic cancer. 
  • White, Paul Dudley (1886-1973)Roxbury, Massachusetts 
  • Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome
  • Lee and White method 
  • A founder of the American Heart Association.
  • The Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Path in Boston is named after him. (He was an avid biker).
  • Attended to Eisenhower after Eisenhower's heart attack. It is said that only White and Eisenhower believed the president would survive.
  • Translated many of Fallot's writings, bringing greater attention to the "Tetralogy of Fallot."
  • The Lee and White method (a lab technique for measuring coagulation) was the subject of his first publication (at the age of 26).