George E Holtzapple (1862–1946) and Oxygen Therapy for Lobar Pneumonia: The First Reported Case (1887) and a Review of the Contemporary Literature to 1899
Restricted accessOtherFirst published online November, 2005
George E Holtzapple (1862–1946) and Oxygen Therapy for Lobar Pneumonia: The First Reported Case (1887) and a Review of the Contemporary Literature to 1899
A commemorative plaque in York Hospital in Pennsylvania, USA, records that George E Holtzapple MD is the physician ‘who discovered the use of oxygen for the treatment of pneumonia on March 6,1885’. This paper suggests that Dr Holtzapple was not the first to use oxygen for pneumonia patients but was the first to publish a case report with a reasoned physiological explanation of oxygen therapy. His publication was intended, in his own words, to benefit ‘average country practitioners' who had no other means of learning about this valuable therapy.
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References
1.
HoltzappleGE. The uses and effects of oxygen gas and nux vomica in the treatment of pneumonia. New York Medical Journal1887; 46: 264–7.
2.
Hepatization is a pathological term for consolidation of lung tissue such that it appears liver-like. It may be referred to as red or grey (or yellow) hepatization, depending on stage and cause.
3.
Dr. Holtzapple, medical pioneer, dies at age 83 [obituary]. York, Pennsylvania Gazette and Daily, 2 February 1946.
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HoltzappleGE. Periodic paralysis. Journal of the American Medical Association1905:1224–31.
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ComroeJH. Obituary of Dr George E. Holtzapple 1862–1946. Annals of Internal Medicine1946; 24: 771–2.
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ProwellGR. George E Holtzapple. History of York County, Pennsylvania. Chicago: JH Beers, 1907: pp. 152–3.
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Famous York doctor is dead at age 83 [obituary], York Dispatch, 2 February 1946.
8.
HoltzappleGE (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 266.
9.
BartholowR. A Practical Treatise on Materia Medica and Therapeutics. 5th edn.New York: Appleton, 1885: p. 318.
10.
BartholowR. In: KellyHABurrageWL, eds. Dictionary of American Medical Biography. New York: D Appleton and Co., 1928: p. 64.
11.
Nux vomica is the seed of the East Indian tree Strychnos nux-vomica Loganiaceae, from which the poison strychnine is obtained. It is composed of several alkaloids, principally strychnine and brucine, and has been used as a bitter tonic and central nervous system stimulant. Like all bitters, it promotes and increases the flow of intestinal juices and therefore favourably affects appetite. A full medicinal dose causes shuddering, a sense of constriction, sudden pains like electric shock in the limbs, followed by surface flushing and perspiration. A toxic dose may produce tetanic-like convulsions and paroxysms, arrest respiratory movements and suspend oxygenation of the blood. The patient may become cyanotic. Bartholow R (op. cit. ref. 9): pp. 391–404.
12.
SmithA. Oxygen gas as a remedy in disease. New York Medical Journal1870; 11: 113–68.
13.
‘Professor E G Janeway reported on the good effects of oxygen in pneumonia at the meeting of the New York State Medical Association in 1885.’ Holtzapple GE (op. cit. ref. 1): p. 267.
