Endocrine Abstracts

It is increasingly common for research funding bodies to ask applicants to demonstrate how the outcome of the proposed research will benefit society or the economic wellbeing of the country. This pre-supposes that the results of the research are somehow predictable and thus diminishes the importance of ‘blue skies’ or curiosity-driven research and the role played by luck or chance in major scientific discoveries. I shall describe how throughout history accidental fin...

Mattew Dobson (1735–1784) was a Liverpool physician who was recognised with FRS for his numerous and varied publications. He investigated a patient with diabetes, which at the time was considered to be a kidney disorder, associated with excessive sweet tasting urine. His experiments showed that the sweet urine, on evaporation, contained white granular material indistinguishable from sugar. However, he also made the crucial observation that the blood serum was also sweet t...

Macroprolactin is a bio-inactive molecule which cross-reacts in prolactin immune-assays. ‘Macroprolactinaemia’ describes hyperprolactinaemia which is entirely explained by the presence of macroprolactin. Failure to recognize macroprolactinaemia is associated with inappropriate investigation and unnecessary treatment. While screening for macroprolactinaemia is regularly undertaken in the UK and Ireland and to a lesser extent in continental European and Japan, this is ...

In 1739 Thomas Coram was granted a Royal Charter to establish the Foundling hospital for the care of abandoned babies. The hospital was established in Bloomsbury and had the patronage of leading cultural figures of the day, including William Hogarth and Handel. Babies were admitted by ballot (white ball in, red ball maybe and black ball rejected), given a new name and fostered until the age of 5. Upon admittance to the hospital they severed all contact with their foster parent...

We present a commentary based on both history and experiences of the many contributions to steroid biochemistry and endocrinology made in Edinburgh over the past 75 years. Reflections will be made commencing with the contributions of Guy Marrian (1904–1981) and colleagues. Marian, occupied the Chair of Medicine with relation to Medicine (later Medical Biochemistry, then Biochemistry) at Edinburgh University from 1939 until his appointment as Director of the ICRF Laborator...

In 1807, the Hunterian museum, the first public museum in Scotland, opened at the University of Glasgow. Its contents were bequeathed by William Hunter, a graduate of the university, and included, as well as anatomy specimens, books, coins, paintings, natural history specimens, ‘curiosities from the South Seas’, minerals, fossils and so forth. A letter of 1809 stated ‘Hunter’s museum has been here for some time and drawn a considerable number of students to...