Charles Edward Isaacs

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Charles Edward Isaacs (24 June 1811 – 16 June 1860) was an American physician and anatomist who was among the first to examine the structure and functioning of the kidneys. Following the studies made by Sir William Bowman about fifteen years earlier, he examined the role of the renal glomeruli in excretion.

Biography[edit]

Isaacs was born in Bedford, New York, the youngest of five children in a farming family. He went to a parish school and then began to study medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York followed by an MD in 1832 from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He served as an army surgeon and rode with Indian tribes around the Southern States. He served at Governor's Island, Fort Kent, Maine, and Copper, Lake Superior, before moving to Fort Niagara in 1845. He resigned the next year and started a private medical school along with W. H. Van Buren in New York. He later became a demonstrator of anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and still later served as a ship surgeon, travelling to Europe. He also served as an adjunct professor of anatomy at the University Medical College and ran a practice in Brooklyn.[1]

A major contribution of Isaacs was his study of kidney tissue and the experimental examination of the role of glomeruli or Malphigian coils as he called them in renal functioning based on renal tissues obtained from a range of animals. He published his findings in 1856 and 1857.[2][3][4][5]

Isaacs may have contracted malaria early in his career and although he died at Brooklyn of pleuropneumonia, he had long suffered from a malarial infection and had Bright's disease.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hutchinson, J. C. (1862). "An address in commemoration of the life and character of the late Charles Edward Isaacs, M.D." American Medical Monthly. 18: 81–94.
  2. ^ Isaacs, C. E. (1857). "On the function of the Malpighian bodies of the kidney". Trans. N. Y. Acad. Med. 1: 437–461.
  3. ^ Bieter, Raymond N. (1929). "Charles Edward Isaacs, a Forgotten American Kidney Physiologist*Submitted as Section i of thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy". Annals of Medical History. 1 (4): 363–377. ISSN 0743-3131. PMC 7945549. PMID 33944290.
  4. ^ Fine, Leon G (2003). "Charles Edward Isaacs (1811-1860): exploring the details of nephron structure and function in the post-Bowman period". Journal of Nephrology. 16 (5): 774–778. ISSN 1724-6059. PMID 14733428.
  5. ^ Bellomo, G. (2013). "A short history of 'glomerulus'". Clinical Kidney Journal. 6 (2): 250–251. doi:10.1093/ckj/sft022. ISSN 2048-8505. PMC 4432456. PMID 26019863.

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