The 14-year-old who got insulin first
In January 1922, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson was close to death from diabetes at Toronto General Hospital. The first extract barely lowered his blood sugar and caused an abscess. A purer batch from James Collip, given 12 days later, worked dramatically.
@scrollmed_factsEndocrine
University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library: The Discovery of InsulinThe rule that cut ankle X-rays
The Ottawa ankle rules were built from 750 adults with ankle injuries at two Canadian emergency departments. In the original study, the rules picked up all 70 significant malleolar fractures, so many patients could safely skip the X-ray.
@scrollmed_factsOrthopaedics
Stiell IG et al. Ann Emerg Med 1992;21:384–90Hashimoto's took decades to be accepted
Hakaru Hashimoto described a lymphocyte-filled, enlarged thyroid in 1912, writing in a German surgical journal. For decades afterwards, doctors argued over whether it was a separate disease or just a stage of Riedel's thyroiditis.
@scrollmed_factsAutoimmune Conditions
Struma lymphomatosa. Ann Intern Med 1947;27:627The army surgeon who invented the cast
Plaster casts are younger than the stethoscope. Antonius Mathijsen, a Belgian army surgeon, introduced plaster-of-Paris bandages for fractures in 1852, changing how broken bones were held still.
@scrollmed_factsOrthopaedics
The Classic: New method for application of plaster-of-Paris bandage. Clin Orthop Relat Res 2007Antibody factories from fused cells
Köhler and Milstein described the hybridoma method in 1975. By fusing antibody-producing cells with tumour cells, they created lasting factories for a single antibody specificity—a breakthrough recognised by the 1984 medicine Nobel.
@scrollmed_factsAutoimmune Conditions
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1984: Press releaseStone surgery has ancient roots
Urinary stones troubled ancient civilisations too: Hippocrates described bladder-stone symptoms, and the earliest recorded details of perineal lithotomy are attributed to Cornelius Celsus.
@scrollmed_factsUrology
Tefekli A, Cezayirli F. ScientificWorldJournal. 2013;2013:423964Colonoscopy is diagnostic and therapeutic
Australian Commission material describes colonoscopy as both a way to inspect the large bowel and a platform for interventions such as removing polyps or taking biopsies.
@scrollmed_factsGastroenterology
ACSQHC: Colonoscopy Clinical Care StandardA low platelet count may be an artefact
EDTA in a blood tube can make platelets clump in vitro, producing pseudothrombocytopenia. A film and repeat count in another anticoagulant can reveal the trap.
@scrollmed_factsHaematology
RCPA Manual: ThrombocytopeniaA tick bite can leave you allergic to steak
Ticks carry a sugar called alpha-gal in their saliva. Almost every mammal has it in its meat, but humans, great apes and Old World monkeys do not, so a bite can teach the immune system to treat it as foreign. Reactions to beef, lamb, pork or kangaroo usually start 4–6 hours after the meal, which is why the link is easy to miss. Gelatin in some capsules can trigger it too. Australian allergists were the first to describe it.
@scrollmed_factsAllergy
ASCIA: Mammalian Meat and Tick Allergy FAQ (2024)The Perth doctor who swallowed his hypothesis
In the early 1980s most doctors blamed peptic ulcers on stress. Barry Marshall drank a culture of the curved bacteria he and Robin Warren had found in stomach biopsies. A biopsy 10 days later showed gastritis, which then settled. The bug is now called Helicobacter pylori and causes most duodenal ulcers. Marshall and Warren shared the 2005 Nobel Prize.
@scrollmed_factsInfectious Diseases
Marshall BJ et al. Med J Aust 1985;142:436–9; Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2005Stress really can turn hair grey
A 2020 study in mice found the mechanism. Acute stress fires the sympathetic nerves that reach each hair follicle. They release noradrenaline, which pushes the melanocyte stem cells there to activate all at once. The stem cell pool runs out, and the new hair grows without pigment. The loss was permanent. Blocking the noradrenaline signal in the follicle prevented the greying.
@scrollmed_factsPhysiology
Zhang B et al. Nature 2020;577:676–81One man's plasma protected 2.4 million babies
James Harrison had a lot of transfusions after lung surgery at 14. As an adult his RhD-negative blood carried rare anti-D antibodies. He donated more than 1,100 times between 1954 and 2018. His plasma helped make about 2.4 million doses of anti-D, which is given to RhD-negative mothers to prevent haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn. He helped make Australia the first country to supply all its own anti-D.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood: James Harrison, the Man with the Golden ArmPenicillin's first patient got better, then it ran out
In February 1941 Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old police officer with a severe staphylococcal infection, became the first person treated with penicillin, at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. He improved within days. But the team, led by Adelaide-born Howard Florey, couldn't make enough of the drug. Treatment stopped and he died. The well-known story that a rose thorn caused his infection has no evidence behind it.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
University of Oxford, Oxford Health Histories: PenicillinNo one has died from a funnel-web bite since 1981
Thirteen deaths have been recorded from Australian funnel-web spiders, most of them blamed on the male Sydney funnel-web. Then an antivenom arrived in 1981, and there have been no recorded deaths since. The venom used to make it is milked from live spiders. In 2025 researchers split the Sydney funnel-web into three separate species.
@scrollmed_factsEmergency
Australian Museum: Australian Funnel-web SpidersUncombable hair is a real genetic diagnosis
Uncombable hair syndrome, also called spun-glass hair, gives children dry, frizzy, often fair hair that won't lie flat however much it is brushed. Under a microscope the shafts are triangular or grooved instead of round. In 2016 researchers traced it to mutations in three genes needed to build the hair shaft: PADI3, TGM3 and TCHH. Most cases are autosomal recessive, and the hair usually improves with age.
@scrollmed_factsPaediatrics
Basmanav FBÜ et al. Am J Hum Genet 2016;99:1292–1304Prions changed one population's genes
Kuru, a fatal prion disease, spread through mortuary feasts in the Papua New Guinea highlands. Cases fell once the practice stopped. A 2009 study of more than 3,000 people, co-led by Australian researcher Michael Alpers, found that survivors who had been exposed were mostly heterozygous at PRNP codon 129. It also found a new variant, G127V, only in the kuru region and never in people with kuru. It seems to protect against prion disease.
@scrollmed_factsInfectious Diseases
Mead S et al. N Engl J Med 2009;361:2056–65The night a thunderstorm caused an asthma emergency
On 21–22 November 2016 a storm swept across Melbourne during the grass pollen season. Within hours thousands of people had breathing problems. Ambulance services and emergency departments were overwhelmed, and the event is thought to have contributed to nine deaths. Victoria now has a thunderstorm asthma forecast every pollen season.
@scrollmed_factsRespiratory
Inspector-General for Emergency Management Victoria: Thunderstorm asthma review, Final Report (2017)Brain freeze has its own randomised trial
In 2002 a Canadian eighth-grader and her father, a family medicine academic, published a randomised trial of ice-cream headache in the BMJ. 145 students were randomised to eat 100 mL of ice cream either in under 5 seconds or slowly. Eating fast brought on more headaches. They ran the trial in winter to test the claim that it only happens in hot weather.
@scrollmed_factsPhysiology
Kaczorowski M, Kaczorowski J. BMJ 2002;325:1445Your gut can brew its own alcohol
In auto-brewery syndrome, yeasts or bacteria in the gut ferment carbohydrates into ethanol. People can become drunk without drinking. They often deny alcohol and eat a diet high in sugar or carbohydrate. It is more common with diabetes, obesity and Crohn disease, but can happen in healthy people. Cases have even been described in the mouth and the bladder. It is probably underdiagnosed.
@scrollmed_factsInfectious Diseases
Painter K, Cordell BJ, Sticco KL. Auto-Brewery Syndrome. StatPearls (NCBI Bookshelf)The bionic ear was solved with a seashell
Graeme Clark struggled to slide an electrode array around the spiral of the cochlea. Then, playing with a turban shell on a beach, he found he could feed a blade of grass all the way along its spiral. Stiff at the base and flexible at the tip was the answer. In 1978 in Melbourne he implanted the first modern multichannel cochlear implant. The patient could hear "Waltzing Matilda" again.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Ho JPK, North H, Singh NP. Med J Aust 2018;209:476–8Melanoma can hide under a nail
A thorough skin check includes under the nails: melanoma and other skin cancers can occur in places that are easy to overlook and not usually exposed to sun.
@scrollmed_factsDermatology
Cancer Council Australia: Check for signs of skin cancerNightingale exposed disease's toll
Florence Nightingale's Crimean work exposed a devastating pattern: preventable disease linked to unsanitary care killed more soldiers than battlefield wounds. Statistical evidence became part of her case for reform.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Science Museum: Florence Nightingale — The pioneer statisticianEncephalitis can leave lasting effects
Recovery from encephalitis may be followed by lasting problems, including seizures or difficulties with memory, balance, hearing or speech.
@scrollmed_factsRenal & Sepsis
healthdirect: EncephalitisHSV can emerge long after acquisition
When genital herpes symptoms do occur, they may appear days or years after HSV was first acquired—timing alone cannot identify when infection occurred.
@scrollmed_factsSexual & Reproductive Health
STI Guidelines Australia: Genital HSVHeart failure includes preserved EF
Heart failure is not synonymous with reduced ejection fraction: Australian guidance explicitly classifies both HFrEF and HFpEF.
@scrollmed_factsCardiology
Heart Foundation: Heart failure clinical guidelinesNerve injury followed EBV
In the longitudinal EBV–MS study, blood neurofilament light—a marker of nerve injury—increased only after EBV seroconversion. The sequence helped researchers examine what happened before MS emerged.
@scrollmed_factsAutoimmune Conditions
Bjørnevik K et al. Science 2022;375:296–301Femoral hernia demographic
Femoral hernias are more common in females, whereas inguinal hernias are the commonest type and mostly affect males.
@scrollmed_factsLiver & Pancreas
healthdirect, HerniasAF can raise stroke risk
In atrial fibrillation, the atria twitch rather than contract normally. The resulting blood-flow changes can favour clot formation, with a clot potentially travelling to the brain and causing stroke.
@scrollmed_factsCardiology
Heart Foundation: What is atrial fibrillation?HFE variants do not equal symptoms
Detecting a common HFE variant does not mean every person will be symptomatic. RCPA notes carriers remain at risk of iron-related end-organ damage, so clinical assessment matters.
@scrollmed_factsHaematology
RCPA Manual: Hereditary haemochromatosisInhalers have Victorian ancestors
Inhaled treatment is not a modern invention. A respiratory-history timeline places Nelson's inhaler and nebulisers in the 1860s, well before the pressurised metered-dose inhaler appeared in the 1950s.
@scrollmed_factsRespiratory
Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementInsulin helped earn a chemistry Nobel
Frederick Sanger mapped insulin's amino acid chains and established their connections in 1955. His protein-structure research, particularly on insulin, earned the chemistry Nobel in 1958.
@scrollmed_factsEndocrine
Nobel Prize: Frederick Sanger—FactsIvermectin began in a soil sample
Ivermectin's story began with a soil microorganism. Satoshi Ōmura isolated Streptomyces avermitilis; William Campbell identified antiparasitic activity in its culture. Ivermectin is a derivative of avermectin.
@scrollmed_factsPharmacology
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015: Advanced informationMalaria remains imported in Australia
Australia is malaria-free, but malaria cases here occur in people who have travelled overseas to affected areas.
@scrollmed_factsLiver & Pancreas
healthdirect, MalariaTwo research paths met at IgE
One team purified the factor that transferred skin sensitivity; another studied an unclassifiable myeloma antibody. When they exchanged reagents in 1967, the two proteins proved to share the same antibody-class markers.
@scrollmed_factsAllergy
Platts-Mills TAE et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2016;116:179–182Newborns can produce milk too
Milk secretion from newborn breasts is sometimes called 'witch's milk'. One nursery and follow-up study documented it in both sexes, including otherwise normal infants still producing milk at two months.
@scrollmed_factsPaediatrics
Madlon-Kay DJ. American Journal of Diseases of Children 1986. PubMed PMID: 3946357Spirometry predates chest X-rays
Hutchinson's spirometer dates to 1842, decades before chest X-rays. Measuring lung volumes came well before clinicians could routinely look inside the chest with radiology.
@scrollmed_factsRespiratory
Geddes D. The history of respiratory disease managementSleep loss can reach the road
Healthdirect notes that insufficient sleep can impair reaction times, making driving dangerous—a reminder that insomnia is not only a night-time complaint.
@scrollmed_factsMental Health
healthdirect: SleepBush medicine involved preparation
The Australian National Botanic Gardens documents Aboriginal medicinal preparations including crushed plant poultices and water extracts. This records traditional practices; it is not a guide to the safety or effectiveness of self-treatment.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Australian National Botanic Gardens: Aboriginal Bush MedicineHCC and cirrhosis
Recognising people with cirrhosis and offering appropriate hepatocellular carcinoma surveillance is a role for primary care, as highlighted in RACGP curriculum material.
@scrollmed_factsLiver & Pancreas
RACGP National Guide, Liver cancerNephrostomy had an accidental start
In 1955, Willard Goodwin was attempting a renal arteriogram when his needle entered a hydronephrotic collecting system. He imaged it and left a drainage tube—an early nephrostomy born from an unexpected turn.
@scrollmed_factsUrology
The Modern History and Evolution of Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy. J Endourol. 2014A worm protein can resemble dust mite
IgE generated against tropomyosin from the roundworm Ascaris can recognise related proteins in dust mites or cockroaches. Cross-reactivity can connect immune responses to organisms that seem completely unrelated.
@scrollmed_factsAllergy
Oettgen HC. J Allergy Clin Immunol 2016;137:1631–1645Leprosy does not spread by a handshake
A handshake, hug or shared meal does not transmit leprosy. Spread is linked to prolonged close contact with an untreated person, probably through respiratory droplets—not the casual contact that stigma often targets.
@scrollmed_factsInfectious Diseases
WHO: LeprosyThe experiment that transferred allergy
In 1921, Prausnitz injected serum from fish-allergic Küstner into his own skin and transferred local fish sensitivity. The experiment showed that a blood-borne factor could carry allergic sensitivity decades before IgE was identified.
@scrollmed_factsAllergy
Platts-Mills TAE et al. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol 2016;116:179–182Fruit flies exposed the body clock
Work in fruit flies revealed a clock protein that builds up at night and is broken down during the day. The discovery helped establish how cells generate an internal daily rhythm rather than merely reacting to daylight.
@scrollmed_factsPhysiology
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017: Press releaseCanberra's neuroscience Nobel
Melbourne-born John Eccles was based at the Australian National University when he shared the 1963 medicine Nobel. The award recognised discoveries about ionic mechanisms behind nerve-cell excitation and inhibition.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Nobel Prize: John Eccles — FactsPolio's laboratory breakthrough
In 1949, Enders, Robbins and Weller grew poliovirus in human muscle and other tissue in the laboratory. That culture breakthrough helped pave the way towards a polio vaccine.
@scrollmed_factsPaediatrics
Nobel Prize: John F. Enders—FactsBowel cancer may be symptom-free
Some bowel cancers cause no early symptoms, which is why screening is aimed at people without symptoms; new bleeding or bowel-habit change instead needs clinical assessment.
@scrollmed_factsGastroenterology
Cancer Council Australia: Early detection of bowel cancerSpray-on skin was a partnership
Fiona Wood did not develop spray-on skin alone. Collections WA credits both Wood and Marie Stoner with developing the RECELL spray-on skin kit—an important reminder that medical innovations often emerge from partnerships.
@scrollmed_factsMedical History
Collections WA: RECELL autologous cell harvesting deviceThe mosquito clue inside a stomach
In 1897, Ronald Ross found a stage of the malaria parasite in a mosquito's stomach after it fed on an infected person. The discovery helped establish the mosquito's role in malaria transmission.
@scrollmed_factsInfectious Diseases
Nobel Prize: Ronald Ross, biographical factsThe LDL receptor had a discovery year
In 1973, Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein discovered a cell-surface receptor that takes up LDL particles. Their work helped explain how cells balance cholesterol production against cholesterol arriving from the blood.
@scrollmed_factsEndocrine
Nobel Prize: Michael Brown—FactsYou're all caught up
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Explore topicsScrollMed summaries, written in our own words from eTG, ASCIA, the Australian Asthma Handbook and other trusted Australian guidelines, plus "Did you know?" facts from journals and official bodies. Tap the source on any post to read the original. Always check the current guideline and local protocols before clinical use.