Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1990

JACOB MENDES DACOSTA (1833-1900) Medical diagnosis with special reference to practical medicine. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1864 xv, 13-690 pp., 26 illus. 22.6 cm.

Da Costa was born in the West Indies and received his early education in Europe. He came to the United States in 1849 and entered the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, where he graduated at the age of nineteen. As customary at that time, Da Costa did postgraduate medical work in Europe before returning to Philadelphia to begin his medical practice. He was appointed to the faculty at Jefferson Medical College in 1864 and in 1872 was elected professor of the theory and practice of medicine. Fielding H. Garrison calls him "perhaps the ablest clinical teacher of his time in the Eastern States" (Introduction to the history of medicine. 4th ed. Philadelphia, 1929. p. 633). Da Costa's most important clinical contribution was his study on irritable heart, published in 1871. An excellent example of nineteenth century clinical research, this eponymic syndrome is often called the mitral valve prolapse syndrome today. Other contributions include observations on pancreatic neoplasms, starvation fever, cerebral neuralgia, the therapeutic use of fluorides, splenic leukemia, the treatment of respiratory diseases, and malarial paralysis. This is his only medical treatise and it was intended to be a guide to the knowledge and discrimination of diseases for students and young practitioners. The book was highly successful, went through nine editions, and was translated into French, German, and Russian.