First contributors in the history of leukemia

Figure 3 John Hughes Bennett (1812-1875). Born in London on 31 August 1812, Bennett (Figure 3) was educated at Exeter (England) and being destined for the medical profession, he entered an apprenticeship with a surgeon in Maidstone (Kent). In 1833, he began his studies in Edinburgh. He published his first article in “London Medical Gazette” in 1836. He graduated in 1837 with the highest honors and gold medal, with a dissertation entitled “The physiology and pathology of the brain”. During the next 4 years, he studied in Paris, where he founded the English-speaking Medical Society, and then in Germany. On his return to Edinburgh in 1841, he published a “Treatise on cod-liver oil as a therapeutic agent” and became physician at the Royal Public Dispensary of Edinburgh. He began to lecture as an extra-academic teacher on histology, drawing attention to the importance of the microscope in the investigation of diseases[54]. In 1843, he was appointed professor of the Institute of Medicine in Edinburgh. Opposed bloodletting and the indiscriminate use of drugs, he was an important influence in changing British therapeutic practices during the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1845, he published a paper entitled “Case of hypertrophy of the spleen and liver in which death took place from suppuration of the blood” in the “Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal”. In 1846, he became editor and later proprietor of the Monthly Journal of Medical Science. In 1851, Bennett founded and became the first president of the Physiological Society of Edinburgh. His publications were very numerous including “Lectures on clinical medicine” (1850-1856), “Clinical lectures on the principles and practice of medicine”, “Leucocythaemia” (1852), “Outlines of physiology” (1858), “Pathology and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis” (1853), “Textbook of physiology” (1871-1872). In 1869, he supported the admission of women medical students in Edinburgh. In 1873, he was elected a member of the French Academy of Medicine and granted recognition by the French government to practice medicine in France. In 1875, after his participation at the meeting of the British Medical Association, he was compelled to have the operation of lithotomy performed. He sank rapidly and died on September 25 at Norwich. In 1901, the University of Edinburgh inaugurated the John Hughes Bennett Laboratory of Experimental Pathology. A second laboratory with his name was opened in 1998, in a joint venture between Britain’s Leukaemia Research Fund, the University of Edinburgh and the Western General Hospital Trust.