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Autographs

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During my many years of medical practice I collected many “autographs”, of people that have become good friends. I collected a few of them for you. Professor Doctor Ermiro Estevam de Lima I had the chance of spending eight months with him, both at the Hospital dos Servidores do Estado and at his private office. These were important months in my training as an otolaryngologist. Professor Doctor Rudof Lang This was a special friend. In 1969 he and I created the Brazilian Otological Society, of which he was the first president (I was the second). We were together in many events, both in Brazil and in many different countries. He had an untimely death due to a lung carcinoma. Professor Doctor Iêda Chaves Pacheco Russo She was a professor of Audiology at the Catholic University in São Paulo, and also a good friend. She was brilliant in her work, with many published papers and books. She created the screening audiological test that Prof. Ricardo Ferreira Bento and I used to che...
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João Mangabeira

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My sons and daughters and a few nephews and nieces asked me to tell them stories of my family. Since we are in relative confinement for the COVID-19 virus, we had a live meeting through, that was very. I thought that it would be a good idea to retell this live meeting in my blog. I have already written about  Francisco Mangabeira, now I will talk about João Mangabeira. Francisco Cavalcanti Mangabeira, my great-grandfather, was a pharmacist, married to Augusta Mangabeira. They had many children. The eldest daughter was  called as “Pepé”, I do not know her rel name. But I know that she became a nun and was the Mother Superior of a convent in São Luís do Maranhão. There were three other daughters, Vina (Lavínia), Maria and Cecília (my grandmother). Francisco Mangabeira was one year older than João. The younger ones were Carlos, that the family called Yoyo, and Octavio. João was born in Salvador in June 26, 1880. João Mangabeira When he was 13 years old he joined t...
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Sugar Blues

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Many years ago I went to a meeting of the Neurootologic and Equilibriometric Society in Turku, Finland.  A physician from the upper New York State, Dr. William Updegraff [1], presented a paper about impaired carbohydrate metabolism and idiopathic Menière's disease. I was quite impressed with his insulin tolerance curves, based on the work of Dr. Joseph Kraft [2]. I became interested in this study and began to order glucose and insulin tolerance curves in my patients with a clinical suspicion of carbohydrate metabolic disorders. In a period of one year I collected 100 of these tolerance tests. In 1992 my associate and dear friend Yotaka Fukuda was working on a research project for his Doctorate thesis. He had to abandon the project, however, due to insurmountable difficulties and discussed the problem with me.  I offered him my collection of glucose and insulin tolerance curves, suggesting that he could use this material for his doctorate thesis. Yotaka Fukuda, between...
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Electrococleography

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Dr. Hallowell Davis, my Professor of Neurophysiology, was the father of electrical response audiometry.  In 1955 he invited Jerome C. Cox to join the Research Department of the Central Institute for the Deaf as an acoustic engineer, and pointed him in the direction of an average response calculator to detect electroencephalographic responses. With the help of his student Maynard Engebretson, Jerry Cox designed and constructed a special digital computer that was named HAVOC – Histogram, Average and Ojive Calculator, which started electric response audiometry. He also developed methods for bioelectric signals, mathematical analysis of the averaging process and sample statistics of the evoked responses. Jerry Cox eventually became the Chairman of the Computer Laboratories of Washington University in Saint Louis. When I visited  Saint Louis in 1964, Dr. Davis was already recording the vertex potentials of the CID children. These children knew the researchers, who always treat...
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The Beatles and Computerized Tomography

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Dr. Feres Secaf was my Professor of Radiology when I was studying Medicine at Escola Paulista de Medicina. Naturally, there are no more professors of Radiology; the area has expanded to include ultrasonography, magnetic resonance, etc., so the medical specialty is now called Medical Imaging. Prof. Secaf was one of the pioneers of Computerized Tomography in Brazil. He once  told me that the Beatles were intensely involved with the development of Computerized Tomography. In fact, he told me this story before the technique became  generally available. I have found some vague references about the Beatles in relation with CT scans, but no conclusions could be found, and there are also suggestions that the whole thing was just fiction. But the story that Prof. Secaf told me had some interesting details. It was well known  that the Beatles had their own recording studio, called Apple – nothing to do with the present day Apple Computers and iPhones. The Apple Recording Comp...
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Our Book Has Been Published!

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Our aim was quite ambitious: we wanted to present what is new in Neurotology and, at the same time, express our Latin American experience in the specialty. And we wanted to emphasize the contributions of the recent neurophysiological advances to clinical Neurotology.  If you want to have a glimpse of our book, or even read a few pages, press one of the links that appear in the bottom of the page. Or press each one, one at a time.   We enjoyed writing this book. We hope you like it too. EU$ US$
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Otology and Neurotology - Past, Present and Future - II

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Part II During the 48th Brazilian Congress of Otorhinolaryngology there was a presentation named The Future of Otolaryngology. I decided to include in my list of blogs this slightly expanded version of my presentation. Some of the names mentioned here have been presented in other pages of this blog. Ádám Politzer Politzer is celebrated as a pioneer of modern otology in the History of Medicine. For many years he was the Professor of Otolaryngology of the University of Vienna and attracted many physicians from different countries, influencing and training thousands of otologists from all over the world. He invented many medical instruments for the diagnosis and treatment of ear diseases. He created the ventilation tubes for the aeration of the middle ear after paracentesis and created the otoscope. He made the first observation that the middle ear ossicles vibrate to sound stimuli.  Wladimir Michailowitsch Bechterew An important Russian neurophysiologist, creato...
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