Newsletters
July 2011 Newsletter: Rundle and His Curve
Rundle’s curve is a well known phenomenon, found in many ophthalmology and endocrinology textbooks. It describes the natural history of the orbital changes in Graves’ ophthalmopathy. Whilst all the primary research underlying this observation was undertaken in the London, Rundle was in fact an Australian, and later returned to Sydney to make a significant contribution to the surgical management of thyroid disease.
September 2009 Newsletter: A Tale of Two Celts
Immunogenic thyrotoxicosis is commonly referred to as Graves’ disease after the Irish physician Robert Graves. That however is a case of mistaken eponymous attribution to the wrong Celt, and the disorder should really be called Parry’s disease after the Welsh physician, Caleb Parry, who was the first to describe the clinical features.
December 2010 Newsletter: Theodore Kocher and His Nobel Prize
Theodore Kocher is known as the “father of thyroid surgery”. He was also the first surgeon to receive the Nobel Prize, which many have assumed was awarded for his having introduced the modern era of safe and effective thyroid surgery. This however was almost certainly not the case.
December 2008 Newsletter: History of thyroid ultrasound
Thyroid and parathyroid ultrasound are now part of routine clinical practice, with endocrine surgeons and endocrinologists around the world being encouraged to incorporate clinician-performed ultrasound (CPU) as an extension of clinical examination.
August 2008 Newsletter: History of goitre management
The German anatomist and surgeon, Lorenz Heister was born in Frankfurt in 1683 and appointed to the Chair in Surgery and Anatomy in Altdor. In his textbook “Chirurgie” we find some of the earliest descriptions of various medical and surgical approaches for the management of goitre.
