G Model ANORL-288; No. of Pages 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Available online at
ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com
Editorial
Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .
A very good day to you all, my dear colleagues, I am Swiss and, to borrow a phrase from a Frenchman, your illustrious predecessor Jacques Monod, I would stress the role of chance and necessity in our honorable profession. So, before saying anything about my humble self, I would like to map out the wandering course of history. In 1811, the Napoleonic wars were ravaging Europe, and the production of gunpowder was a top priority. In France, a large part of this business was in the hands of one chemist and industrialist, Bernard Courtois. The saltpeter (potassium nitrate) used in manufacturing gunpowder came, traditionally, from wood ash; supply, however, was so badly affected by the British embargo that Courtois was led to replace wood as a raw material by a sort of seaweed that grows abundantly along French coasts, kelp. The seaweed was incinerated in huge vessels, and it was while cleaning one of these out with acid that Courtois noticed a bitter violet-colored gas that was given off and deposited in fine crystals on the vessel walls. He was, however, too overworked to be able to pursue the matter himself, and it was the French scientist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac who described the properties of this hitherto unknown halogen, which he named after the Greek adjective meaning “violet”. It never crossed poor Courtois’ mind to patent his discovery; he died destitute and his widow was obliged to fall back on poor relief. This trace element did, however, in 1820, catch the attention of a fellow-countryman of mine, Jean Franc¸ois Coindet, head physician at the Geneva Hospital, who wondered whether it might not be the active principle in the sea-sponge ash which was administered in Switzerland as an effective folk-remedy for goiter. And that is how iodine came to be used in the treatment of thyroid pathology. Not until 1896, in Germany, did the chemist Eugen Baumann notice that iodine concentrates in the thyroid gland, suggesting a hypothesis for the origin of goiter. Thyroid hormone was discovered in 1914. This then raised the issue of iodine deficiency, a particular problem in our mountainous part of the world, where “goitrous cretinism” had long been endemic (in 1780, the traveler William Coxe published an article in the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, entitled “Account of the Vallais [sic], and of the Goiters and Idiots of that Country”). Differential diagnosis is, however, essential, with respect to stupidity and inanity, which remain endemic to this day and seem to be fundamentally incurable.
DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aforl.2014.01.005.
It is at this point that I come into the story. I was born in the Valais canton of Switzerland, of Huguenot stock, on May 4th, 1868, in Sion, on the banks of the Upper Rhône. After brilliantly successful studies in Bern, I became Professor of General Surgery in 1907, was appointed to the Chair of Surgery in Basel in 1910, and became the Hospital Director and lecturer in Bern in 1918. I never practiced outside the borders of my beautiful homeland but, within them, I was a famous surgeon, with a wide range of interests. Tenosynovitis of the thumb ligaments, also known as “trigger thumb” or “washerwoman’s sprain”, is just one of the entities that bears my name. I was also a student and assistant of Emile Théodore Kocher, who won the Nobel Prize in 1909. In his hands, thyroid surgery (one of my main centers of interest) had become anodyne, with morbidity plummeting. The prevention of “cretinism”, on the other hand, was still one of our main preoccupations. Thanks to my stubborn campaigning, backed up by my established reputation, iodine was introduced as an additive in table salt in 1922, first in a few cantons and then in the whole of Switzerland. Within a matter of years, this dreadful disease had been eradicated; the last Swiss cretin officially died in 1970. North America adopted my policy in the 1930s, and France followed in 1950. . . I retired in 1938, and in 1940 succumbed to acute pancreatitis. Few of you may remember the role I played in the fight against
Fig. 1.
1879-7296/$ – see front matter © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
Please cite this article in press as: Werner A, et al. Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .. European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
G Model ANORL-288; No. of Pages 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS Editorial / European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
2
iodine deficiency and its appalling consequences, but you should know that I also described a particular form of thyroiditis: usually secondary to rhinopharyngeal infection (an ENT disease if ever there was!), it presents as severe neck pain, with onset of goiter and transient hypothyroidism, and can be treated by non-steroid anti-inflammatories. . . So, now you know who I am. . . Helvetically yours, Fritz de Quervain (Fig. 1).
A. Werner a I. McGill b O. Laccourreye c,∗ a 18, rue de la Ferme, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France b Place du Plâtre, 69930 Saint-Laurent-de-Chamousset, France c Service d’oto-rhino-laryngologie et de chirurgie cervicofaciale, université Paris Descartes Sorbonne-Paris-Cité, hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou, AP–HP, 20-40, rue Leblanc, 75015 Paris, France
Disclosure of interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest concerning this article.
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (O. Laccourreye)
Please cite this article in press as: Werner A, et al. Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .. European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
ARTICLE IN PRESS European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Available online at
ScienceDirect www.sciencedirect.com
Editorial
Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .
A very good day to you all, my dear colleagues, I am Swiss and, to borrow a phrase from a Frenchman, your illustrious predecessor Jacques Monod, I would stress the role of chance and necessity in our honorable profession. So, before saying anything about my humble self, I would like to map out the wandering course of history. In 1811, the Napoleonic wars were ravaging Europe, and the production of gunpowder was a top priority. In France, a large part of this business was in the hands of one chemist and industrialist, Bernard Courtois. The saltpeter (potassium nitrate) used in manufacturing gunpowder came, traditionally, from wood ash; supply, however, was so badly affected by the British embargo that Courtois was led to replace wood as a raw material by a sort of seaweed that grows abundantly along French coasts, kelp. The seaweed was incinerated in huge vessels, and it was while cleaning one of these out with acid that Courtois noticed a bitter violet-colored gas that was given off and deposited in fine crystals on the vessel walls. He was, however, too overworked to be able to pursue the matter himself, and it was the French scientist Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac who described the properties of this hitherto unknown halogen, which he named after the Greek adjective meaning “violet”. It never crossed poor Courtois’ mind to patent his discovery; he died destitute and his widow was obliged to fall back on poor relief. This trace element did, however, in 1820, catch the attention of a fellow-countryman of mine, Jean Franc¸ois Coindet, head physician at the Geneva Hospital, who wondered whether it might not be the active principle in the sea-sponge ash which was administered in Switzerland as an effective folk-remedy for goiter. And that is how iodine came to be used in the treatment of thyroid pathology. Not until 1896, in Germany, did the chemist Eugen Baumann notice that iodine concentrates in the thyroid gland, suggesting a hypothesis for the origin of goiter. Thyroid hormone was discovered in 1914. This then raised the issue of iodine deficiency, a particular problem in our mountainous part of the world, where “goitrous cretinism” had long been endemic (in 1780, the traveler William Coxe published an article in the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, entitled “Account of the Vallais [sic], and of the Goiters and Idiots of that Country”). Differential diagnosis is, however, essential, with respect to stupidity and inanity, which remain endemic to this day and seem to be fundamentally incurable.
DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aforl.2014.01.005.
It is at this point that I come into the story. I was born in the Valais canton of Switzerland, of Huguenot stock, on May 4th, 1868, in Sion, on the banks of the Upper Rhône. After brilliantly successful studies in Bern, I became Professor of General Surgery in 1907, was appointed to the Chair of Surgery in Basel in 1910, and became the Hospital Director and lecturer in Bern in 1918. I never practiced outside the borders of my beautiful homeland but, within them, I was a famous surgeon, with a wide range of interests. Tenosynovitis of the thumb ligaments, also known as “trigger thumb” or “washerwoman’s sprain”, is just one of the entities that bears my name. I was also a student and assistant of Emile Théodore Kocher, who won the Nobel Prize in 1909. In his hands, thyroid surgery (one of my main centers of interest) had become anodyne, with morbidity plummeting. The prevention of “cretinism”, on the other hand, was still one of our main preoccupations. Thanks to my stubborn campaigning, backed up by my established reputation, iodine was introduced as an additive in table salt in 1922, first in a few cantons and then in the whole of Switzerland. Within a matter of years, this dreadful disease had been eradicated; the last Swiss cretin officially died in 1970. North America adopted my policy in the 1930s, and France followed in 1950. . . I retired in 1938, and in 1940 succumbed to acute pancreatitis. Few of you may remember the role I played in the fight against
Fig. 1.
1879-7296/$ – see front matter © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
Please cite this article in press as: Werner A, et al. Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .. European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
G Model ANORL-288; No. of Pages 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS Editorial / European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
2
iodine deficiency and its appalling consequences, but you should know that I also described a particular form of thyroiditis: usually secondary to rhinopharyngeal infection (an ENT disease if ever there was!), it presents as severe neck pain, with onset of goiter and transient hypothyroidism, and can be treated by non-steroid anti-inflammatories. . . So, now you know who I am. . . Helvetically yours, Fritz de Quervain (Fig. 1).
A. Werner a I. McGill b O. Laccourreye c,∗ a 18, rue de la Ferme, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France b Place du Plâtre, 69930 Saint-Laurent-de-Chamousset, France c Service d’oto-rhino-laryngologie et de chirurgie cervicofaciale, université Paris Descartes Sorbonne-Paris-Cité, hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou, AP–HP, 20-40, rue Leblanc, 75015 Paris, France
Disclosure of interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest concerning this article.
∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (O. Laccourreye)
Please cite this article in press as: Werner A, et al. Abecedarium: Who am I? Q’. . .. European Annals of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck diseases (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anorl.2013.11.001
