Leukemia

November 16th, 1846

 

Dear Diary,

          Today is the day the world will receive an answer! I have diagnosed the first ever leucocythemia patient, Thomas Windsor! The patient was showing many symptoms of sharp pain in limbs, excruciating headaches, vertigo, insomnia, loss of appetite, diarrhea, extreme thirst and weakness. Also, Windsor was showing a symptom that was most peculiar, he had an enlarged spleen and liver. I knew it was leucocythemia when I examined his blood vessels. They were are dilated, which decreases his blood pressure. Windsor did not make it out alive, but his case has just helped many generations to come. I believe I have just diagnosed the first of many patients with leucocythemia.

 

          I had some help from doctors that have come before me. In 1811, Peter Cullen discovered a case he named Splenitis Acutus with abnormal milky blood. Splenitis Acutus is the decrepit name for leucocythemia. Just a few years after Cullen’s discovery in 1825, Alfred Velpeau observed puss in blood vessels and noted more symptoms for splenitis acutus. This is when the disease started to evolve into more of a serious disease. The doctors understood that Splenitis Acutus affected the blood cells but they did not know which blood cells were mainly affected. In 1844 Alfred Donné discovered the slowing down of the maturing process of white blood cells. This was a breakthrough because a new piece was added to the mystery of Splenitis Acutus. The doctors now knew what was being directly affected, white blood cells, which protects the body from infections and diseases. Then in 1845 John Bennet renamed Splenitis Acutus to leucocythemia in his paper titled, Case of Hypertrophy of the Spleen and Liver in which Death Took Place from Suppuration of the Blood. Splenitis Acutus was no longer the name the disease. In the same year Rudolf Virchow defined a reverse white and red blood cell balance to add another symptom of leucocythemia to the list. That was the last discovery until I came along and diagnosed the first patient with leucocythemia. The previous doctors’ studies helped me make my conclusion of the first patient with leucocythemia.

 

          Thomas Windsor is dead, but many people will live because of him. Thomas Windsor was only 22 years of age and leucocythemia stole the most precious thing in the world, life. This discovery will make my name known and I will try everyday of my life to find a cure for this wretched disease. I respect all of the doctors that have made discoveries before me and with all of the information I have gathered from them, I will make the disease come to an end. If this does not work then leucocythemia will affect many generations after my death.

 

 

 

Until next time,

Henry Fuller