Obstetrical forceps.

Moritz Heinrich Romberg (1795-1873) acquired much of the wisdom and attitudes prevailing in English medicine when in 1820 he translated into German, Andrew Marshall's (1742-1813) The Morbid Anatomy of the Brain and Charles Bell's The Nervous System of the Human Body. He revolutionised European neurology, publishing his Lehrbuch der Nervenkrankheiten des Menschen: the first systematic textbook in neurology. Romberg's contribution to neurology, and his establishing tabes dorsalis as a distinctive disease were of crucial importance. Romberg's sign, once synonymous with tabes dorsalis, became recognised as common to all proprioceptive disorders of the legs. His several major clinical contributions included: a classic description of achondroplasia, progressive facial hemiatrophy, and an unmistakable description of the pupils in tertiary syphilis before E.J. Remak and Argyll Robertson.

History, 18th Century↗

PubMed2005

Richard Dobson Kt MRCS FRS (1773-1847) and the inferior status of naval medicine in the early nineteenth century: end of the fleet physicians.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century assistant-surgeons in the Navy possessed an inferior status compared with their equivalents in the Army, despite protestations from the Physician of the Navy, Sir William Burnett FRS; lack of promotion was a major complaint. By abolishing the title physician in the Navy, Sir Richard Dobson, FRS, surgeon to Greenwich Hospital, did much to rectify this injustice. Instead of only two promotions in 26 years, 26 medical officers were, as a result of his exertions, advanced to the rank above that of Surgeon in two years.

History, 18th Century↗