History
Various comments by ancient physicians have been read as referring to CSF. Hippocrates discussed "water" surrounding the brain when describing congenital hydrocephalus, and Galen referred to "excremental liquid" in the ventricles of the brain, which he believed was purged into the nose. But for some 16 intervening centuries of ongoing anatomical study, CSF remains unmentioned in the literature. This is perhaps because of the prevailing autopsy technique, which involved cutting off the head, thereby removing evidence of the CSF before the brain was examined. The modern rediscovery of CSF is now credited to Emanuel Swedenborg. In a manuscript written between 1741 and 1744, unpublished in his lifetime, Swedenborg referred to CSF as "spirituous lymph" secreted from the roof of the fourth ventricle down to the medulla oblongata and spinal cord. This manuscript was eventually published in translation in 1887.
Albrecht von Haller, a Swiss physician and physiologist made note in his 1747 book on physiology that the "water" in the brain was secreted into the ventricles and absorbed in the veins, and when secreted in excess, could lead to hydrocephalus.
Francois Magendie studied the properties of CSF by vivisection. He discovered the foramen Magendie, the opening in the roof of the fourth ventricle, but mistakenly believed that CSF was secreted by the pia mater.
Thomas Willis (noted as the discoverer of the circle of Willis) made note of the fact that the consistency of the CSF is altered in meningitis.
In 1891, W. Essex Wynter began treating tubercular meningitis by tapping the subarachnoid space, and Heinrich Quincke began to popularize lumbar puncture, which he advocated for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.. In 19th and early 20th century literature, particularly German medical literature, liquor cerebrospinalis was a term used to refer to CSF.
In 1912, William Mestrezat gave the first accurate description of the chemical composition of the CSF. In 1914, Harvey W. Cushing published conclusive evidence that the CSF is secreted by the choroid plexus.
Read more about this topic: Cerebrospinal Fluid
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to realize myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have succeeded this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is realizable. Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact; and anyone who has studied the history of science knows that almost every great step therein has been made by the anticipation of Nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (182595)