Die historischen Grundlagen der Leberforschung, Vol. II: Die Geschichte der Leberforschung von Galen bis Claude Bernard

The American Medical Association met in Philadelphia in 1876 and the fourteen dermatologists at the congress founded the American Dermatological Association, Duhring being one of the vice-presidents. He remained active in American dermatology until 1910 and died in 1913. He had been a shrewd investor but surprised even his family when he left over a million dollars to the University of Pennsylvania. How should we assess Duhring's achievements? To call him a 'pathfinder for derma-tology' is an overstatement unless we add 'in America'. Certainly he did not achieve for dermatology as much as he did a great deal to establish dermatology as a specialty in the United States. Although dermatitis herpetiformis had been described by Hebra (with another name) Duhring added a great deal to our knowledge of this condition. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to teach that the skin was part of the entire body and that dermatology was concerned with more than superficial changes in the integument. It was for this reason that he preferred the term 'cutaneous medicine'. This book is an interesting account of a remarkable man and of the development of medicine in Philadelphia in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. It is pleasantly written except for the occasional phrase such as 'chronologic peer'. 'Pityriasis' does not mean 'mild inflammation' (p. 49). In a previously published monograph in the Basler Veroffentlichungen Dr. Mani has already set forth ancient conceptions of the anatomy, physiology and pathology of the liver, with special emphasis on Greek and Roman antiquity (Fasc. IX, Die historischen Grundlagen der Leberforschung, L). The present volume spans sixteen hundred years of anatomical and physiological investigation of the liver but omits consideration of pathology. The reader will find in Dr. Mani's book a careful and detailed presentation of the ideas and findings (interspersed with a wealth of citations drawn from the primary sources) of every hepatologist of any importance in this period. The text is further supplemented by 137 pages of notes and citations from primary sources in fine print. Another valuable feature is an extensive and well reproduced collection of anatomical illustrations drawn from the medical literature of the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. Dr. Mani considers Galen the ancient and Bernard the modern focal point in the history of hepatology. After a long period during which Galen's doctrines were transmitted with little change from generation to generation there came the 'morphological …