- Samuel Wilks
Sir Samuel Wilks (1824-1911), British
physician andbiographer .Wilks studied medicine at
Guy's Hospital from 1844 to 1846. After graduation he was hired as a physician to theSurrey Infirmary (1853). In 1856 he came to Guy's Hospital again, first as assistant physician andcurator of its Museum (a post he held for nine years), then as physician and lecturer onMedicine (1857). From 1866 to 1870 he was Examiner in the Practice of Medicine at theUniversity of London and from 1868 to 1875 Examiner in Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons. Among his many services and honors, Wilks was President of the Pathological Society (1881-1882); President of the Neurological Society (1887); member of the Senate of the University of London (1887-1900); member of the General Medicine Council (1887-1896) and President of theRoyal College of Physicians (1896-1899). He was named Physician Extraordinary to Queen Victoria in 1897. He died in 1911.Among his major discoveries, Wilks recognized
ulcerative colitis in 1859, differentiating it from bacterialdysentery . His work was confirmed later (1931) by SirArthur Hirst . Wilksautopsy of a 42 year-old woman who died after several months ofdiarrhea andfever demonstrated a transmural ulcerativeinflammation of the colon and terminalileum . The disease is now namedCrohn's disease .Wilks also firstly described
trichorrhexis nodosa (the formation of nodes along thehair shaft), in 1852. The term was proposed in 1876 byMoritz Kaposi (1837-1902), an Hungariandermatologist . Subsequently, in 1868, he published the characteristic mental symptoms onalcohol icparaplegia (later to be namedKorsakoff's syndrome ). Wilks described the first case ofmyasthenia gravis , in 1877 (it was named "bulbar paralysis" in "Guy's Hospital Reports" 22:7).He was a collaborator and biographer of the "Three Great", contemporary physicians who worked at Guy's Hospital, Dr.
Thomas Addison , the discoverer ofAddison's disease , Dr. Richard Bright, discoverer ofBright's disease and Dr.Thomas Hodgkin , discoverer ofHodgkin's lymphoma . After the death of Addison in 1860, he carried out the job of examining specimens from all over the country in order to confirm the diagnosis of Addison's disease and thus was able to amass a large case archive. He also rediscovered and confirmed the existence of Hodgkin's lymphoma, at the same time recognizing Hodgkin's priority and proposing theeponym .Publications
"Lectures on Pathology Delivered at the London Hospital". J & A Churchill, London, 1891.
References
* Kauntze R.: Samuel Wilks. "Guy's Hosp Rep." 1970;119(4):353-5.
External links
* [http://www.wehner.org/addison/wilks/ The Wilks Report on Addison's Disease (1862) complete]
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