Sir Benjamin Collins BrodieDied 21 Oct 1862 at age 79 (born 8 Jun 1783).(1st Baronet) British physiologist and surgeon whose name is applied to certain diseases of the bones and joints. As one of the outstanding surgeons of 19th-century London, he opposed the prevailing practice of indiscriminate amputation, always trying to save the limb instead. He pioneered the surgery of varicose veins. In 1814, he described synovitis in the knee joint. In his book Pathological and Surgical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints (1818), he traced the beginnings of disease in the different tissues that form a joint and to give an exact value to the symptom of pain as evidence of organic disease. This work led to conservative measures in the treatment of diseases of the joints, with a consequent reduction in the number of amputations and the saving of many limbs and lives. In 1843 a tuberculous abscess in the head of the tibia, Brodie's abscess. He lectured on hysterical pain. Brodie's knee came to refer to a condition of stiff knees frequently observed in hysterical patients. From research with animals, he disproved the chemical theory of animal heat, which held that respiration was the immediate source of heat production. |
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