(Excerpt from Rabies
Dr. Ravenel has had extended experie...)
Excerpt from Rabies
Dr. Ravenel has had extended experience in diagnosing cases of rabies, and is, therefore, both by personal experience, as well as by careful study of the subject, thoroughly conversant with the facts which he relates.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
A Half Century of Public Health: Jubilee Historical Volume of the American Public Health Association; In Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary ... City, November 14-18, 1921 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Half Century of Public Health: Jubilee His...)
Excerpt from A Half Century of Public Health: Jubilee Historical Volume of the American Public Health Association; In Commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of Its Foundation New York City, November 14-18, 1921
The American Public Health Association has been fortunate, not only in having come into existence at an opportune time, but also in having lived during a period made notable for all time by remarkable discoveries in every branch of science. Wonderful in themselves as these discoveries have been, their Chief value has lain in their useful ness to man. In no field have more remarkable advances been achieved than in medicine, both curative and preventive. Both have been revolutionized; knowledge has replaced guess-work; experiment has superseded empiricism and superstition; medicine has become a science rather than an art, all through the brilliant researches begun by Pasteur, and carried on by Koch and a host of earnest workers who followed in their footsteps.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
A Contribution to the Study of the Etiology of Membranous Rhinitis (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Contribution to the Study of the Etiology ...)
Excerpt from A Contribution to the Study of the Etiology of Membranous Rhinitis
Cases XI and XII.) In the last case there is an element of doubt, so that only two positive in stances can be given. It will be noted that Case XI apparently communicated the same disease to Case XII. More than a month after the latter child had been discharged as cured of the nasal trouble she returned to the dispensary suffering from faucial diphtheria; and of the two other children in the same house, who were taken ill later, both had the disease confined to the fauces. As it had been impossible to examine Case XII thoroughly when first sick, it seems not unlikely that the disease persisted in some part of the naso-pharynx, and that finally the fauces became infected. The length of time which elapsed, however, before the second illness, afforded abun dant opportunity for a fresh exposure, though no such history could be obtained.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Mazÿck Porcher Ravenel was an American bacteriologist, hygienist, and public health authority.
Background
Mazÿck Porcher Ravenel was born on June 16, 1861 in Pendleton, South Carolina, the seventh child and fourth son of Henry Edmund Ravenel and Selina (Porcher) Ravenel of Charleston and Pendleton. The Ravenel family was of special distinction in South Carolina history. Their American lineage derived from René Ravenel, sieur de la Massais, of Vitré in Brittany, France, and his wife, Charlotte, daughter of Pierre de St. Julien, sieur de Malacare, each of whom was among the Huguenots who emigrated from France after the revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes and settled in Charles Town (now Charleston) in the province of Carolina. Marriages among their descendants introduced other Huguenot strains, including the Porcher, Mazÿck, and Gaillard families. Eminent physicians, scientists, and businessmen were in the several combined lines.
Education
Mazÿck Porcher Ravenel graduated from the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1881 and from the Medical College of South Carolina in Charleston in 1884. He practiced medicine in Charleston for six years, teaching at his alma mater and carrying out medical research. His interests in the latter field were developing rapidly, and as a consequence he felt the need of additional training. He moved to Philadelphia in 1892, where he matriculated in the first class in hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania and served as Scott fellow in hygiene (1893 - 1894) and assistant in bacteriology (1895). He pursued further medical studies at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and at the Institute of Hygiene in Halle, Germany (1896). In 1904, during his tenure at the Henry Phipps Institute, he studied at the Maragliano Institute in Genoa, Italy. Ravenel always gave credit to John Shaw Billings, professor of hygiene at the University of Pennsylvania for his early training in that field.
Career
In 1895, well prepared for studies of infectious diseases in animals and their prevention, he became the first director of the Hygienic Laboratory of the New Jersey State Board of Health.
In 1896 he was appointed instructor in bacteriology at the medical and veterinary schools of the University of Pennsylvania, and bacteriologist of the Pennsylvania State Live Stock Sanitary Board. He held this position for eight years, widening his scientific associations in the veterinary field and developing a deep understanding of the relation of animal diseases to illness in man.
These led to his appointment in 1904 as assistant medical director and bacteriologist at the newly founded Henry Phipps Institute for the Study, Treatment, and Prevention of Tuberculosis, a research institution founded in Philadelphia by Henry Phipps, partner of Andrew Carnegie, and directed by the distinguished Philadelphia tuberculosis specialist Lawrence Flick. His associations there with staff and visitors eminent in clinical studies on human tuberculosis were vitally important in supplementing his understanding of bovine tuberculosis.
At the Phipps Institute he was fortunate also in his close association with the veterinarian Leonard Pearson, a distinguished student of bovine diseases. Ravenel traveled abroad with him to meet many eminent tuberculosis investigators in Europe. Ravenel's numerous published papers on tuberculosis marked him as one of the leading investigators of the disease in America. He was elected president of the National Tuberculosis Association in 1911.
In 1907 Ravenel accepted an invitation to the University of Wisconsin as professor of bacteriology. Here for seven years he continued his studies of tuberculosis and added important investigations on typhoid fever, rabies, and diphtheria, largely in their public health aspects. At the British Congress on Tuberculosis in London in 1901 and particularly at the International Congress on Tuberculosis in Washington, D. C. , in 1908, Ravenel opposed the views of Robert Koch, discoverer of the tubercle bacillus and most eminent tuberculosis investigator of the day.
While in Wisconsin, Ravenel served as director of the state hygienic laboratory. His Wisconsin experience with typhoid and diphtheria carriers and his various related publications established his position as a leader in public health and preventive medicine. He was president of the Wisconsin Antituberculosis Association throughout most of his stay in the state (1907 - 1914).
In 1914 he was appointed professor of preventive medicine and bacteriology at the University of Missouri and director of its public health laboratory. Here he continued his earlier studies and became more deeply involved in the field of public health, fortified by close association with the American Public Health Association, of which he became a director in 1915. During World War I, Ravenel served as major and lieutenant colonel in the Army Medical Corps, with assignments at Fort Riley and Camp Funston, Kansas, and Camp Kearny, California. In January 1919, he was commissioned assistant surgeon general in the reserve corps of the Public Health Service.
In 1920 he was named president of the American Public Health Association. He edited a monograph on the association, A Half Century of Public Health (1921), which is considered a classic in the history of public health. From 1924 to the end of his life he was editor or active editor emeritus of the American Journal of Public Health. A colleague wrote that he took it over as an ordinary association record book and handed it on to his successor as the outstanding public health publication in the country.
He died of pneumonia in 1946 at Columbia, Missuri. He was buried near his old home in Pendleton, South Carolina.
Achievements
Prominent among his investigations were studies of bovine tuberculosis, the bacteriology of milk, anthrax, fungus infections in livestock animals and man, and rabies. Most important at the time were his studies of tuberculosis.
On his retirement from active editorship in 1941 he was widely praised for his vigor, industry, integrity, and scholarship. He insisted on accuracy and was called the "paternal castigator" of the careless and inexact. Ravenel belonged to many scientific and scholarly societies.
(Excerpt from Rabies
Dr. Ravenel has had extended experie...)
Views
Koch believed that the bovine type of tubercle bacillus could not cause pulmonary tuberculosis in man. Ravenel's experience and that of the eminent American investigator Theobald Smith were quite to the contrary. Ravenel's refutation of Koch at the international meeting in 1908 was spectacular. It is said that Ravenel, who was naturally inclined to argument, deeply enjoyed his confrontation with Koch. In subsequent years his view of the infectiousness of the bovine tubercle bacillus for man was universally accepted.
Membership
He was chairman of the public health section of the American Medical Association (1913) and president of the United States Live Stock Sanitary Association (1913). He was a member of the National Advisory Health Council (1931) and many American and international commissions of importance to public health. He was an honorary member of the Royal Sanitary Institute of Great Britain. He belonged to the American Philosophical Society.
Connections
His second wife was the former Adele Allston Vanderhorst of Charleston, South Carolina, a daughter of Gov. Robert Withers Allston. They were married in December 1910.
