Appendicitis historical perspective
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Appendicitis Microchapters |
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Appendicitis On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Appendicitis |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Discovery
- The knowledge of the appendix itself dates back to ancient Egypt. Coptic jars from from the ancient egyptian times refer to "the worm of the intestine". The earliest known drawing of the appendix was by the great artist and scientist, Leonardo da Vinci, in 1492. The first description of the appendix was by Physician and Anatomist Jacopo Berengaro Dan Carpi in 1521. In 1543, Andrea Vasulius portrayed a clear illustration of the appendix in "De Humani Corporis Fabrica.
- The first description of appendicitis is thought to date back to the early 1500's by French doctor and prolific writer, Jean Francois Fernel, in the "Universa Medicina". He describes a patient:
"A girl of seven afflicted with diarrhoea passed for many days from the bowels a white putrid and foul material. She swelled up with increasingly severe pains and repeated loss of consciousness and vomiting of a fecal liquid. She died miserably two days later. On opening the body, the caecum intestinum was narrowed and constricted....and material opened up itself an unusual route by necrosis and perforation".