Georgia GI: database

Medical Information: Who Are The Medical Heroes Of The Millennium?

Nicholas V. Costrini, M.D., Ph.D.
Medical Director
Georgia Gastroenterology Group

I hope the year 2000 passes quickly. Because of the unavoidable arrival of the new century and millennium, we have all been subjected to the endless lists of "Greatest Someones." It is for fun and nostalgia calisthenics that we make the effort to review the past and attempt to list the greatest contributors, legends, or heroes of the past in various theaters of life. In sports the lists are particularly interesting because I can recall collecting baseball cards, attending games, or watching many of these heroes on TV. I thought they were good, but calling them the greatest of the millennium never occurred to me as I traded the cards, collected stats, or watched them play. I took hockey lessons as a kid in Detroit from a guy named Gordie Howe. He now shows up as one of the legends of hockey. He is named shortly after we bow our heads in adoration of The Great One of hockey, Wayne Gretsky. In baseball, the list includes familiar names such as Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Pete Rose, and Sandy Koufax. I marvel at the name recognition of these Guys. They are known as heroes and legends even by people who have no interest in organized sports. My wife has heard of most of the above named jocks even though she considers sports something done happily by the mentally challanged every Saturday and Sunday all year long and with added enthusiasm on Monday nights during the Fall. Our society makes heroes of our sports figures and has seized the calendars necessary millennium point to launch them into another arbitrary spotlight for adulation. It is no wonder that a teen thinks an SAT score of 400 is OK as long as he has the same batting average for high school baseball team. If our culture were different, the great heroes of the millennium in medicine and the life sciences would be well-known and given at this time the celebrity consideration and adulation accorded to such truly singular athletes such as Mohammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretsky, and Arnold Palmer.

If I were to prepare Medicine and Science trading cards, whose pictures and accomplishments would get the nod for the Legends of Medicine Cards? Who are the greatest physicians and health scientists of the millennium? I figure I could name them, make and sell their cards with gum or something nutritionally correct - perhaps a tofu stick. Students would exchange them in class and discuss the awesome feats these heroes accomplished and contributed to our health and lives. A lot more young people would choose paths to the lab rather than the playing field; but much more important would be the awareness of what are the truly great events in the complex and sometimes criticized world of medicine. The very first trading cards of the Legends of Medicine must include these superstars.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the Austrian neurologist who is considered the founder of modern psychoanalysis. He helped us understand why we play games and compete anyway.
Wilhelm Rontgen (1845-1923), the German physicist who discovered x-ray. When the football star breaks his leg in a game, it is the discovery of this superstar of medicine that allows physicians to correctly diagnose the damage with an x-ray.
Francis Crick (1916-) and James Watson (1928-) shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 for determining the genetic code of DNA. This is possibly the most important medical discovery of the 20th century. It may explain why some of us are athletic and some are not.
Marie Curie (1867-1934), the Polish chemist who discovered radioactivity. She won two Nobel Prizes for her work. Her discovery is the basis for radiation therapy in the treatment of cancers. Sports heroes and all of us rely on Marie Curie's work for cure of cancer.
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a French chemist, first proposed the concept that diseases are caused by germs. He developed the process of pasteurization (heating of milk, etc.) to kill bacteria and prevent disease. His work is the basis for modern concepts of infections, treatments, and public health. He is the superstar in Medicine that Mohammed Ali is in sports.
In addition to these stars, my Legends of Medicine cards would include a local favorite, Dr Crawford Long of Atlanta, who in 1842 was the first to use ether as an anesthesia for surgery. Finally, Jonas Salk (1914-1995) would have a card because he developed the polio vaccine that eliminated the crippling disease of many young athletes. Like baseball cards, there would be many cards of not-so-famous physicians. I could even have a card of myself. I wonder if a science student would trade his Dr. Jonas Salk card or his Marie Curie card for a Dr. Nicholas Costrini card. No way, not even for a Babe Ruth card.

Search Again | Top