Mr. Thomas Lewis

Sir Thomas Lewis ( 1881 – 1945 )

The poor prognosis associated with chaotic irregularity of the pulse was clearly known by most of ancient physicians. Perhaps the earliest description of atrial fibrillation is in Chinese, in The Yellow Emperors Classic of Internal Medicine, but in recorded history, William Harvey in 1628 was probably the first to describe ‘fibrillation of the auricles’ in animals. The first electrocardiographi...

Thomas Lewis-the early years.

Poem: A Lewis Thomas View of Medicine

Dr Grace Dammann had devoted decades of her life to the compassionate care of AIDS patients in San Francisco, California, when, on May 21, 2008, a head-on vehicle collision on the Golden Gate Bridge nearly took her life. When she not only survived but came out of a coma with all of her mental faculties intact, Grace, her family, and her doctors agreed it was nothing short of a miracle. Her path...

Planning science (a generation after Lewis Thomas).

Andrew Marks' recent editorial eloquently reiterated a concern that many of us have voiced before, that the current policies and practices of the NIH are not serving the public well.

Lewis Thomas and droopy rabbit ears

Tissue injury can occur when the immune system gets over-activated. The first clues to the cause of this immunemediated damage came in the early 1950s from studies of rheumatic fever—a complication of Streptococcal infections that results in tissue destruction in the heart, skin, and joints. Heart lesions typical of rheumatic fever could be induced in experimental animals injected with bacteria...