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  • History of Nephrology 4: Reports from the Third Congress of the International Association for the History of Nephrology
  • Robert I. Levy
Garabed Eknoyan, Natale G. De Santo, Shaul M. Shasha, Guido Bellinghieri, Vincenzo Savica, and Shaul G. Massry, eds. History of Nephrology 4: Reports from the Third Congress of the International Association for the History of Nephrology. Basel, Switzerland, S. Karger AG, 2002. vi, 218 pp., illus. $64.50 (cloth).

To borrow a phrase from Hippocrates: the life of nephrology as a specialty may be short, but its art is quite long, as is demonstrated by the recent fourth volume in the series History of Nephrology.

This book collects papers that were given at the Third Congress of the International Association for the History of Nephrology (IAHN) in October 2000. A picture of the conference site in Tyaorimina, Sicily, beautifully reproduced on the cover, suggests at least one superficial attraction for its far-flung participants. The contributors represent a sampling of countries, including Bulgaria, France, Belgium, Greece, the United Kingdom, Israel, Italy, and the United States.

The IAHN was founded in 1991, and the first session was held in Naples, Italy, in October 1993. The proceedings of this and subsequent congresses appeared originally in American Journal of Nephrology and have been reproduced in separate volumes by its publisher, S. Karger AG. [End Page 481]

The current History of Nephrology 4 is a brilliantly formatted edition on high-quality, nonacidic paper with ample drawings and photographs, many in color. The publishers have a notable precedent. The original 1827 edition of Richard Bright's Medical Cases Reports employed the work of engraver Fredrick R. Say, who relied on his day's high standard of mezzotint lithographs. Unlike Bright's book, however, which cost roughly ten times the price of the average medical book of its day, History of Nephrology 4 is reasonably priced and readily available.

Although there are many scattered articles on the history of nephrology in general textbooks and published articles, here are gathered reports by practicing nephrologists exploring the history of their own field. There is, again, a notable precedent. Pierre Rayer, in the last hundred pages of his 1849Traite des Maladies des Reins, reviewed and critically evaluated the literature on nephrology from Hippocrates to his own time. History of Nephrology 4 examines selected aspects of this history to our present times and explores in detail both the ancient and more recent roots of this new specialty.

An introductory essay, "On the Continued Reconstruction of the History of Nephrology" by the editors states: "In helping reconstruct the history of diseases that constitute the matrix of nephrology, the IAHN has entered a new phase in its evolution ...[reconstructing] components of the edifice which constitutes the history of nephrology" (p. 2). There then follows several sections on the origins of nephrology in magic and myth, in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. The modern era is covered with a review of the contributions of Harvey Lester White, R. F. Pitts, V. du Vigneaud, and John P. Peters. Also included is a section on the development of concepts of renal disease, such as acute and chronic renal failure, nephrotic syndrome, and immunology. Finally, there is a section on therapeutics.

This format is a convenient way of organizing into workable sections these thirty-three various papers delivered at the Congress. In the future, I hope the authors would consider focusing on a major subject or a symposium on a defined topic, rather than arbitrarily arranging the diverse papers into set categories. In the History of Nephrology 3, such a symposium on the origins of renal physiology was presented with excellent results.

The last paper on the origins of nephrology is titled "History of Nephrology in the Talmudic Corpus" by Estee Dvorjetski. At twenty-three pages it is the longest and most detailed article in the volume, with forty-three well-chosen and pertinent references. Dvorjetski shows that the Bible considered the kidneys symbols of the human emotions, contrary to the heart, which was regarded as the location of wisdom and understanding. Extensive evaluation of biblical and Talmudic literature is used to [End Page 482] indicate the sage's concern...

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