Medical Discoveries
Herrick studied and taught at various Chicago hospitals. His first discovery, in 1904, was that of sickle-shaped red blood cells on the blood film of a medical student from Grenada. Herrick's description of the student's disease was known for many years as Herrick's syndrome, and is now known as sickle-cell disease. The condition is prevalent in West Africa.
Herrick's second major contribution was a landmark article on myocardial infarction ("heart attack") in JAMA in 1912. He proposed that thrombosis in the coronary artery leads to the symptoms and abnormalities of heart attacks and that this was not inevitably fatal. While Herrick was not the first to propose this, ultimately his article was the most influential, although at the time it received only limited attention. In 1918 he was one of the first to encourage electrocardiography in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction.
Herrick is not closely associated with genetics, but his discoveries turned out to be inherited traits, so his contributions pointed other researchers toward genetically-based conditions.
Read more about this topic: James B. Herrick
Famous quotes containing the words medical and/or discoveries:
“Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearers character, until we hesitate to lay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age and in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that of gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a pile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman ancestors. If they made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)