The invention of Lasik eye surgery by Gholam Peyman

In 1948, Father Szuniewicz, recognized as a trailblazer in the field of refractive surgery, voyaged to the United States with the intention of advancing his investigation into corneal reshaping. He embarked on this pursuit at Yale University in New Haven, CT.

Starting as early as the 1950s, medical researchers began delving into techniques to correct vision by manipulating the cornea's shape. However, it was ophthalmologist Jose Barraquer from Colombia who initiated the historical trajectory of LASIK by devising the initial surgical remedy for vision correction. He honed a method that involved fashioning a flap within the cornea to facilitate alterations in its shape.

Dr. Gholam Peyman initially undertook the study and evaluation of the potential utility of a CO2 laser to modify the structure of rabbit eye corneas. Nonetheless, he found this laser to be inadequate for the required procedure and lacking in its ability to prevent subsequent scarring.

Peyman's primary aim was to avoid surface ablation in order to sidestep potential corneal scarring and the accompanying discomfort resulting from the removal of the corneal epithelium, a step needed to expose the cornea's surface.

In 1980, Peyman published an article outlining the feasibility of performing eye surgery using ablative laser technology. However, this concept remained speculative at that time due to the unavailability of the necessary laser advancements.

During the 1980s, Rangaswamy Srinivasan, an IBM researcher stationed in Yorktown Heights, NY, delved into the interaction of laser technology with organic matter, particularly exploring the impacts of ultraviolet light. A significant breakthrough occurred in 1980 when Dr. Srinivasan confirmed that an excimer laser could extract living tissue without causing thermal harm to surrounding cells.

Towards the end of 1982, he stumbled upon an article from IBM Laboratories published in Laser Focus, which detailed their work involving excimer lasers and organic materials.

Consequently, in July 1985, he submitted a patent application describing a technique for altering corneal refractive errors through laser ablation beneath a corneal flap. This patent was eventually granted in June 1989 after two revisions. Peyman initiated a series of experimental studies in collaboration with the Physics Department of the University of Helsinki, Finland, to assess the effects of various excimer lasers.

In 1990, European eye specialists Ioannis Pallikaris and Lucio Burrato pioneered a method that laid the foundation for LASIK surgery. Termed the "flap and zap" technique, it encompassed the creation of a corneal flap, reshaping tissue using a laser, and subsequently sealing the flap to promote healing.

Maintaining awareness of the potential limitations of his innovation, Peyman dedicated substantial time and effort in the following years to enhancing them. In a bid to optimize the risk-to-benefit ratio of the LASIK procedure, he introduced and obtained patents for a comprehensive range of ablative and non-ablative inlays in 2004. These were designed to be placed beneath the surgically fashioned corneal flap.
The invention of Lasik eye surgery by Gholam Peyman

History of modern dermatology

The Hebrew Bible of 2700 years ago describes dermatologic diseases and therapies, suggesting that disorders were of divine inflection. Avicenna (980-1037) a Persian scholar in his book The Canon of Medicine laid stress on the pores of skin as a route to eliminate the excess of humours for cure of diseases.

After the crusade wars (1095-1291), nee nursing and hospital orders were developed. The order of Lazarus, which was devoted to the care of the lepers, was found at the beginning of the 12th century. The first book committed to skin diseases was published in 1572 in Venice. It reported the oral lessons of Italian physician, Girolamo Mercuriali (1530-1606).

In A Treatise of Diseases Incident to the Skin, written in English and published in 1714, Daniel Turner (1667-1741) mentions crust and scabies in infants.

Robert Willan (1757-1812)

Robert Willan (1757-1812) and his talented pupil Thomas Bateman (1778-1821) created clinical dermatology by giving precise description of elementary lesions, a concept created in 1776 by Joseph Plenck (1735-1807). Joseph Plenck the Viennese protodermatologist is considered to be the forerunner of modern European dermatology. Plenck introduced the systematization of dermatovenereological diseases, based on their paradigmatic differences.

Dermatology in the United States began in the 1830s with Henry Daggett Bulkley and Noah Worcester.

Henry Daggett Bulkley (1804-1872) a Yale graduate in return from Paris, established the first dispensary for the treatment of skin and venereal diseases, the Broome Street Infirmary for Skin disease. He also developed and presented the first series of lectures on dermatology in North America.

Noah Worcester (1812-1847) a Dartmouth graduate after studying in the Parisian clinics joined the faculty of the newly founded Medical School of Ohio. Dr Noah Worcester wrote the first American dermatology textbook on skin diseases in 1845, Disease of the Skin.
History of modern dermatology

Merck & Company (USA)

Merck was founded as a chemical manufacturer in Germany in 1668. Run by the Merck family for generations, the company moved to the United States in 1891 under the direction of George Merck. The company had a humble start as an importer of chemicals from Germany.

By 1897 sales in the USA topped US$ 1 million, George Merck became a US citizen in 1902 and shortly afterwards began manufacturing at Rahway in New Jersey and in St Louis.

The ties between Merck’s subsidiary in the USA and its parent company in Germany were served during the way, a break that became permanent, each thereafter pursuing its own path.

Merck continued as a chemical manufacturer until the 1930s, when it began to do research and development (R&D) in pharmaceuticals.  In the 1920s, the founder announced his core philosophy: Medicine is for the patient; not for the profits. The profits follow.

Two mergers, one in 1953 with Sharp & Dohme, a pharmaceutical firm and another with Medco, a prescription benefits management company, found Merck leaving its chemical production roots and moving exclusively to producing and selling pharmaceuticals.

A merger with Schering Plough increased the number of employees from 73,000 in 2008 to the 100,000 figure at the end of 2009.
Merck & Company (USA)

Vioxx by Merck

Vioxx (Rofecoxib) a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) was introduced to the market in 1999.  In 1994, Merck’s R&D program discovered Vioxx, one of a group COX-2 inhibitors, COX-2 inhibitors include over the counter medications such as Advil (ibuprofen) and Aleve (naproxen) that serve to reduce both pain and inflammation.

From 1994 through 1999, Merck navigated the Food and Drug Administration approval process, one that has incremental steps for approval. In May 1999 approved Vioxx for the relief of osteoarthritis symptoms and management of acute pain.

Merck made billions on profits from Vioxx. Vioxx was one of the major sources of revenue for Merck while on the market: It was marketed in more than eighty countries with worldwide sales totaling $2.5 billion in 2003.

In September 2004, Merck was forced to take Vioxx off the market after a three-year study demonstrated that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients taking it for at least eighteen months. According to an epidemiologist study done by Graham, an FDA scientist, Vioxx has been associated with more than 27,000 heart attacks or deaths.

A May 2006 study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal stated that Vioxx may raise the risk of heart attacks for patients who took the RX for less than two weeks.
Vioxx by Merck 

First medical journal

In 1665 first scientific journals are published: the French Journal des scavans and the English Proceeding of the Royal Society, following on from social, economic and technological advances which had allowed a literate and leisured class to arise in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Not until 1679 did the world see the first journal devoted exclusively to medicine, Nouvelles Descouvertes sur Toutes les Parties de la Medecine, begins publication.

The first serious medical journal published in Britain is Medicina Curiosa or a Variety of New Communications in Physick, Chirurgery, and Anatomy, which appeared for only two issues in London in 1684.

The physician, in the early days of the United States, who wanted to write an article for publication in a medical journal, had to look either outside the country or to a non-medical journal.

England and France were favorites among the foreign countries.

In fact it was a translation of a French medical journal, Journal de Medecine Militaire, whose first volume was published in New York around 1790 as the Journal of the Practice of Medicine and Surgery and Pharmacy in the Military Hospitals of France.

In 1788, the first transactions of a United States medial society, Cases and Observations of the Medical Society of New Haven County, were published. This was followed by the first American medical journal published in 1797 in New York: The Medical Repository. Like most early journals, it lasted only a few years.

By the 19th century, some of the now famous contemporary medical journals began to appear, such as the New England Journal of Medicine in 1812 and the Lancet in 1823.
First medical journal 

Caisson disease and Brooklyn Bridge

Caisson disease is a medical condition related to sudden exposure to a reduction in the pressure surrounding the body.

The work of Brooklyn Bridge started on January 3, 1870. The foundations were built first structures called ‘caissons’ were built and sunk to the river bottom. Washington Roebling designed the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge. These were complex divided: Each caisson has several holes in the roof that provided access to the hollow chamber inside.

No water could get into it. Workers dug until they reached solid rock where the arches could be built.

Compressed air had to be pumped into the caisson constantly so that the workers could breathe. The high pressure inside the chamber also helped prevent the caisson’s walls from collapse because of weight of the water around it.

The caisson went deeper and deeper, and some workmen began to feel sick when they exited the chamber. Workers got it when they left the caissons and rose to the surface too quickly. Several people died from caisson disease and others were paralyzed.

They complained about pains in their arms and legs, dizziness and vomiting. Andrew Smith, a doctor brought in to study the situation, correctly divined that rapid decompression was the key to the problem.

The illness suffered by workers became known as caisson disease. It is also known as ‘the bends’.

Today, decompression sickness is both well understood and easily prevented. The key is to avoid a rapid change in pressure.
Caisson disease and Brooklyn Bridge

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine – First medical school in US

The first American medical school was founded at the University of Pennsylvania in 1765.

The idea of establishing a medical school in Philadelphia appears to have been first conceived by Dr. William Shippen (1736-1808) and Dr John Morgan (1733-1789).

Dr. Shippen on his return from Europe, in the year 1762, commenced a course of lectures on Anatomy. 

While Dr. John Morgan, return from Europe with an Edinburgh MD and attend teaching as the college’s original medical professor, thereby inaugurating the first medical school in the American colonies.

It was 3rd May 1765 at which the first medical professor was appointed. For its first hundred years the medical faculty taught students at the Pennsylvania Hospitals, five city blocks from the second location of the college’s buildings.

The first medical commencement was held in the 21st of June 1768.
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine – First medical school in US

History of the medical schools in United States

During the 17th and most of the 18th centuries, students seeking medical education had three alternatives:
*Travel to Europe to study in medical school or hospital there
*Become formally apprenticed to a physician willing to train students, call a preceptor
*Learn the profession in some less formal way

Apprenticeship flourished as a necessity and without effective restrictions on the who and how of preceptorship. As early as 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company contracted with sergeant Lambert Wilson to serve the settlers and nearly Indians and to give medical training to one or more young men.

The most significant medical event in the decade of the 1750’s was the chartering (1751) and opening (1752) of the Pennsylvania Hospital, which to be designed general hospital.

The very first medical school in the original 13 colonies was founded in 1765 by John Morgan at the University of Pennsylvania, which at the time was known as the College of Philadelphia.

The faculty has been trained at the University of Edinburgh and used British medical education as the model.

Two years later, a second medical school was organized in New York as King’s College. King’s college holds the distinction of being the first medical school in the colonies to formally offer the MD (doctor of medicine) degree beginning in in 1767.

In 1800, three schools graduated students, with the number of schools increasing from 52 in 1850 to maximum of 162 in 1906.

In 1797, one-man medical school was established at Dartmouth College. In 1807 a group of physicians organized an independent medical school in Baltimore, because the city had no college. Medical schools were established at Yale in 1812, at Brown about 1815 and at Bowdoin in 8121.

From 1906 to 1929, the number of schools declined sharply, largely because of the inspection and classification system begun in 1904 by the American Medical Association Council on Medical Education. 

Led by scientific progressives in the medical profession, a movement arose to require rigorous scientific training and licensing of physicians.

Established in 1893, the John Hopkins Medical School required all entrants to hold college degrees and to complete four additional years of study for graduation.
History of the medical schools in United States

History of Mayo Clinic

The Mayo Clinic has its root in the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln appointed American surgeon William James Mayo as examining surgeon or the Union enrollment boards for the First Minnesota District on April24, 1863.

Shortly after 1880, William James Mayo formed the first group practice, which became the now well-known Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

William James Mayo received his MD degree in 1883 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and then engaged at Rochester in the private practice of medicine and surgery with his father and after with his younger brother Charles Horace Mayo.

Charlie was a surgical genius and with his brother and the clinic administrator, William James, he had helped build the Clink’s reputation until, despite the town’s population of barely 20,000, it had become one of the most sought after medical referral centers in all of American.

Mayo clinic offered advanced medical and surgical care, to those who could pay or who had private insurance.

The clinic began to grow in size in the early 1900s, when many young physicians began to apply for positions as interns and assistants.

In 1915 the Mayos opened the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and in 1972 the Mayo Medical School opened.

In 1986 the Mayo Clinic merged with the nearby St. Mary’s Hospital and Rochester Methodist Hospital.
History of Mayo Clinic