Sir Morell Mackenzie is acknowledged as the ‘Father of British Otolaryngology’. He was the leading throat specialist of his time and one of the founders...
Most head and neck surgeons and ENT-specialists may know that the first laryngectomy for cancer was performed by Billroth on 31 December 1873. Billroth´s assistant,...
The ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, used the ‘art of smell’ to diagnose diseases around 400BC. He also formulated miasmatic theory, which posited that disease is...
Hippocrates himself is known to have said that when a woman’s menses are due, but instead of the usual vaginal menstrual flow, she has a...
Medical journals have a fascinating history. One early journal, The Lancet, was founded in 1823 and its first Editor, London surgeon Thomas Wakley (1795-1862), had...
The anonymous privately-printed book, Some Account of Lord Boringdon’s Accident, describes in deferential terms a case of aspiration of a foreign body and its sequelae....
Beethoven was one of the world’s greatest musicians, and his deafness is well known. Many details of his medical conditions are known, and various theories...
Charles Darwin’s grandfather was not only on to where we all came from by the end of the 18th century, but dared to declare it...
It’s mid 1944. The allies have landed at Normandy, the Germans have abandoned Rome and are retreating from the Russians on the eastern front. The...
Draffin’s rods or bipods are a well-known ENT instrument. Before their invention in 1951, the attendant anaesthetist or nurse was obliged to support the mouthgag...
News of the first successful public demonstration of general anaesthesia in Boston, Massachusetts in October 1846 reached Britain in mid-December of that year. James Robinson,...
Hamlet written by William Shakespeare at the very beginning of the 17th century has definite otological interest. The whole play is about young Prince Hamlet’s...