- Les
biographies de
neurologues
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- John
Abercrombie (1780-1844) was born at Aberdeen
and was educated there in the public schools and
at Marischal College; he went to Edinburgh for
his medical training and received his degree in
1803. He first became interested in the mental
side of medicine, and his inaugural dissertation
was entitled "De atuite alpina."
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- After a year at St. George's in London, he
returned to Edinburgh, where he became attached
to the public dispensary and established himself
in practice. In both of these fields he became
familiar with the life of the poor. He had an
office in the poorer part of the town and he
divided the district into sections and gave them
over to his students, keeping the general
supervision for himself. He was a sharp observer
and kept records of all cases of interest.
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- Many of these were elaborated into papers,
which for the most part appeared in the
Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal from 1816
to 1824. From these papers he made two books of
unusual value, which repay reading today. Both
were published in 1828, and the titles are
"Pathological and Practical Researches on
Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord" and
"Pathological and Practical Researches on
Diseases of the Stomach, the Intestinal Canal,
the Liver and the Other Viscera of the Abdomen."
Both are storehoises of clinical knowledge.
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- When James Gregory died in 1821, Abercrombie
became one of the foremost consultants in
Scotland. He became a licentiate of the College
of Physicians in 1823 an the next year was made
a fellow. He was also given the honorary title
of physician-in-ordinary to the kings of
Scotland. In 1830 he published "Inquiries
Concerning the Intellectual Powers and the
Investigation of Truth;" in 1833, "The
Philosophy of the Moral Feelings," and in 1835,
a volume of essays and tracts, chiefly on moral
and religious subjects. He was much more
successful as a clinician than as a moral
philosopher.
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- John Abercrombie was a member of the famous
Edinburgh School of the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. The first to treat
neuropathology as a separate entity, he is best
known through his Pathological and Practical
Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal
Cord (1828), the first textbook of
neuropathology.
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- The son of an Aberdeen clergyman,
Abercrombie received his doctorate in 1803.
Following a six months stay in London he settled
in Edinburgh as a member of the Royal College of
Surgeons of Edinburgh. At first he had a
conventional practice as a general practitioner.
However, his superb qualities, particularly the
unusual care he showed his patients, soon gained
him an exceptional reputation - and an extensive
consultative practice, which was still growing
when he became a member of the Royal College of
Physicians in 1821. From that year he was
reckoned the number one consultative authority
in Edinburgh. Rivals and enemies were not
absent, however, but even they were more or les
disarmed by his friendly manners - most of them
instead becoming his friends.
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- A strong religiosity and charitability were
basic traits of Abercrombie's characters; to his
professional colleagues he was a sample of
collegiality, bedside he was a man of silence.
He became royal life physician in Scotland, in
1834 doctor of honour of medicine at the
University of Oxford and vice president of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh, in 1835 Lord Rector
of the Marishal College and the University of
Aberdeen. His inaugural address on the latter
occasion was published under the extended title
of Culture and discipline of the mind.
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- In 1841 Abercrombie suffered an attack of
paralysis, but recovered and resumed his
practice. On November 14, 1844, he was found
dead, lying stretched out with his face down in
his room. He had been on his way out to visit
patients. The autopsy showed rupture of a
coronary artery with haemopericardium as the
cause of death. The conspicuously large brain
weighed 46 ounces.
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- Abercrombie was never a physician with a
hospital or ambulatorium. His numerous and
instructive observations of disease are thus
exclusively taken from his private practice. He
was a strong advocate of medicine based on
experience, maybe too much so, but this may also
be seen as a protest against the rampant system
building in the medicine of his time.
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- To Abercrombie, the noblest task of the
medical writer is the exact observation and
exact report of the pathological facts and their
reciprocal relation. To him all theories and
systems were of lesser value in these contexts,
and neither did he believe that medicine could
be enriched by other scientific methods, like
experiments.
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- General principles in the natural sciences
are no more than common knowledge, or facts
common to all individuals in a class; and only
when they are deduced from an exact observation
of each and all of these individuals, can they
lay claim of truth or usefulness. If, on the
other hand, they are deduced from a limited
observation, they are usually useless in
science, and dangerous in medicine.
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- Abercrombie's written work was large,
comprising not only medicine, but also moral
philosophy.
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- Bibliography:
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- • Cynancke laryngea. 1806.
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- • De fatuitate alpina. Doctoral thesis,
56 pages. Edinburgi, Adamus Neill et socii,
1803. [Pamphl. v. 24.]
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- • Cynancke laryngea. Edinburgh Medical
and Surgical Journal, 1806.
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- • Researches on the pathology of the
intestinal canal. 1820.
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- • Pathological and practical researches
on the diseases of the brain and spinal
cord.
- Edinburgh, Waugh and Innes, 1828.
Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1831.
- First textbook of neuropathology. Originally
published in a series of articles in the
Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,
1818-1819, and first collected into book form in
the German translation, with appendix by
Christian Friedrich Nasse (1788-1851); Bonn, E.
Weber, 1821.
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- • Pathological and practical researches
on disease of the stomach, the intestinal canal,
the liver, and other viscera of the abdomen. 396
pages. Edinburgh, Waugh & Innes, 1827 (43:
1828); 3rd edition, 1834.
- German translation, with appendixes, by
Christian Friedrich Nasse, et al.
- 3rd Americam edition, from 2nd London
edition, 322 pages. Philadelphia, Carey, Lea
& Blanchard, 1838.
- French translation by Augustin-Nicolas
Gendrin (1796-1890): Recherches
pathologiques et pratiques sur les maladies de
l'encéphale et de la moelle
épinière. Deuxième
édition. Traduites de l'Anglais et
augmentées de notes très
nombreuses par A. N. Gendrin. Paris, 1832. IV +
652 pages.
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- • Diseases of the abdominal viscera.
2nd ed. 1830.
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- • On the intellectual powers and the
investigation of truth. London 1830.
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- • Suggestions submited to the medical
practitioners of Edinburgh on the character and
treatment of the malignant cholera. 2nd edition.
16 pages. 12º. Edinburgh, Waugh &
Innes, 1832. [Pamphl. v. 95.]
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- • Philosophy of the moral feeling.
1833.
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- • Culture and discipline of the mind.
1835.Inaugural address as rector of the Marichal
College and the University of Aberdeen.
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- © 1994-2001 Ole Daniel
Enersen. All rights reserved.
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