Gerhard Wm
NAME:
Gerhard, William Wood
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Early pioneer of scientific medicine
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
23 July 1809, Philadelphia, PA
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
28 April 1872, Philadelphia, PA. Aged 63
DISCIPLINE:
Physician and pathologist
FIELD:
Pathology
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: William Gerhard
Mother: Sarah Wood
SIBLINGS:
??
SPOUSE:
Ann Dobbyn
CHILDREN:
3
EDUCATION:
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
MAJOR WORK:
"On the Typhus Fever, Which Occurred at Philadelphia in the Spring and
Summer of 1836 .." (1836)
"Diseases of the Chest" (1838)
LIFE AND TIMES:
During his training Gerhard worked in the Philadelphia Almshouse and his thesis on endermic medication was based on observations he had made of almost 200 medical cases.
After gaining his degree in 1830, he went to Paris to complete his education where he studied mainly under <taught by> Louis* at the Hopital de la Pitie. Louis was prominent among the new generation of physicians who rejected the old philosophical style of medicine, had a reputation which attracted many American students, including <fellow-student was> Holmes*, <fellow-student was> James Jackson jnr* and <fellow-student was> Shattuck*.
In his lectures and at his Society of Medical Observation, Louis taught his students to make detailed observations on patients and to keep meticulous notes which could then be analysed to provide new data on diseases. This was exactly the way Gerhard liked to
work and he set about obtaining data in the big city hospitals in Paris.
He mostly worked in the children's hospital where he gathered information for scientific papers on smallpox, measles and pneumonia. Whenever possible, he correlated his observations of a case with post mortem data. His approach was so rigorous that he would not read up on an illness before observing it in case he was influenced by another clinician's views.
He was particularly interested in diseases of the chest and persuaded Louis to give him and other students private lessons in listening for symptoms.
In 1832 Gerhard co-wrote a paper on cholera, including observations on over twenty cases personally observed. It was published in America and was of great value to doctors
during the cholera epidemic in America that year. He also wrote two valuable papers on tuberculosis, meningitis and pneumonia in children, showing the different course of the diseases in children and adults.
By the time he returned to Philadelphia in 1833 Gerhard's reputation was established by the articles he had published. In 1834 he was appointed a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the following year he became one of the visiting doctors at the Philadelphia Almshouse whose name he succeeding in changing to the Philadelphia Hospital so that he could undertake pathological research there.
In 1836 there was an outbreak of typhus fever in Philadelphia as a result of which Gerhard published the paper which made him known throughout the medical world. "On the Typhus Fever, Which Occurred at Philadelphia in the Spring and Summer of 1836 .."
was based on observations Gerhard had made in Philadelphia, Paris and Edinburgh, both in the wards and in the dissecting rooms.
By matching observed symptoms in a patient with the type of lesion found in post mortem examination, the paper demonstrated for the first time the difference between typhoid and typhus fever, a distinction which was often missed, and also proved beyond doubt the value of the use of statistics in medical data.
The paper appeared in Dublin, London and Paris and was a significant step in the advance towards the acceptance of scientific medicine. In line with this movement towards a diagnosis based on observation and analysis, Gerhard published "On Diagnosis of Diseases of the Chest" (1836), a paper which emphasised the practical value of the relatively new procedures of asculatation (listening to the chest) and percussion (tapping on the chest).
He lectured at the Philadelphia Medical Institute and in 1837, as an accompaniment to his lectures, he published a "Clinical Guide, and Syllabus of a Course of Lectures, on Clinical Medicine and Pathology". In 1838 he was appointed assistant to the professor of the institutes of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the same year he published his "Diseases of the Chest" and founded the "Medical Examiner", a journal which he also edited and in which he published his lectures and promoted his methods.
Gerhard was also involved in establishing the Pathological Society of Philadelphia and he became its first president. The Society was inspired by Louis's society in Paris and became a popular meeting point for pupils and modern thinkers in medicine. In 1840 Gerhard's students offered a public tribute to his teaching, in particular to his presentation of the diseases of the chest.
In addition to his teaching commitments, Gerhard edited textbooks, published papers and in 1841 he set up a dispensary clinic which later became part of the university. He also maintained his own private practice and gained a reputation for as an outstanding diagnostician.
After having a minor stroke in 1843 he did very little of his own research. During an epidemic of cerebrospinal meningitis (spotted fever) in 1863, he wrote a paper on the subject. He retired from the Philadelphia Hospital in 1868 and went on vacation to Europe where he met Louis again. He became ill on his return and spent his last years as an invalid.
ASSESSMENT: He fostered the ideas of modern scientific medicine in the mid- nineteenth century.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: William Gerhard, early pioneer of scientific medicine
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
ANB
Shyrock, Richard Harrison, The Development of Modern Medicine, University
of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1936
Osler, William, An Alabama Student and Other Biographical Essay, Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1908