Stamp Vignette
Gustave Roussy: Swiss-French Neurologist, Pathologist, and Cancer Institute Founder
Gustave Roussy was born on November 24, 1874, in Vevey, Switzerland, the third of 4 children of Emile-Louis Roussy (1848-1920) and Caroline Gabrielle Aguet (1850-1924). His family were Calvinist Protestants, and his Huguenot ancestors had fled from France to Switzerland after religious persecution following the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His father was president of the Nestlé condensed milk company from 1905-1920, which had been co-founded by Gustave’s grandfather Pierre in 1875. After his father’s death, his older brother August became the company president and contributed to the company’s growth into a global food conglomerate.Helen Clapesattle: Author of a Best-Selling Book About “The Doctors Mayo”
For many years, Drs William and Charles Mayo resisted proposals to write a biography of their lives or a comprehensive history of how Mayo Clinic came to exist. The Mayo brothers had endured negative experiences with the media during their careers, often being charged by critics with “unethical advertising” whenever an article about them appeared in a newspaper or a general audience magazine, and they did not want to authorize a potentially superficial, inaccurate story that could draw disparagement from vindictive or jealous colleagues.Austria’s Unusual Pandemic-Themed Postage Stamps: Toilet Paper, Facemask, Bandage
Since the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the postal service in Austria has issued 3 stamps that have challenged traditional assumptions of how a postage stamp should look and feel.Dr Li Wenliang: Wuhan “Whistleblower” and Early COVID-19 Victim
Li Wenliang (李文亮), MD, was an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, China, who warned several of his colleagues about the appearance of a new SARS-like virus in December 2019, at the very beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Initially reprimanded by a hospital administrator and formally admonished by the local authorities in Wuhan, he was later exonerated by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China and, after his untimely death, honored by the central government of China as a “martyr” — one of the highest honors given to a private citizen in China.Samuel Gridley Howe: Abolitionist, Physician, and Pioneer in Education of Children With Vision Loss and Mental Disability
“Injustice in society is like a rotten timber in the foundation of a house,” was the motto and guiding principle of Samuel Gridley Howe, MD. Dr Howe was a physician, teacher, and philanthropist who spent much of his life crusading against some of the great inequalities and prejudices of his time.Suzanne Gros Noël: Plastic Surgery Pioneer and Advocate for Women’s Rights
Suzanne Blanche Marguerite Gros was born on January 19, 1878, in Laon, France, the capital of the Aisne Department, located about 140 km north of Paris. Her father, Victor Antoine (b. 1844), was a successful carriage maker, and her mother, Esther Arthémise Marie née Thomas (b. 1851), was a homemaker. Suzanne was an only child, as her 3 siblings all died in infancy. When she was 6 years old, her father died of tuberculosis. Because the family was well-off financially, Suzanne was able to complete secondary school in Laon despite her father’s death, and she had a typical “bourgeoise” upbringing for the era, including instruction in art, music, sewing, and etiquette.M. Vera Peters: Pioneering Radiation Oncologist
Mildred Vera Peters was born April 28, 1911, in the Thistledown neighborhood of Rexdale, Ontario, now a part of metropolitan Toronto. She attended a one-room school and grew up on a dairy farm, on which she milked cows and drove a tractor as a child. Her father, Charles, died suddenly in 1923, when she was 11 years old, and left her mother Rebecca Mair – a schoolteacher – with 7 children.Dr John H. Watson: Sherlock Holmes’ Companion and Biographer
Few fictional characters are as well recognized around the world as the London-based crime-solving duo of “consulting detective” Sherlock Holmes and his loyal confidant Dr John Watson, created in 1887 by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Watson and Holmes’ literary association spanned 40 years, from their first appearance in A Study in Scarlet: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department to The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, published in The Strand Magazine in 1927.Albin Lambotte: Pioneer of Osteosynthesis (Bone Fixation)
Albin Lambotte was born on July 3, 1866, in Brussels, Belgium – the youngest of 7 children. His father, a professor of comparative anatomy, died when Albin was 7 years old. Albin was greatly influenced by his older brother Elie Lambotte (1856-1912), a surgeon practicing in the Brussels suburb of Schaarbeek. Elie Lambotte did early work in fixation of tibial fractures with wires and screws around 1890, and Albin often assisted him, but then Elie became discouraged and did not pursue this approach further.Emile Letournel: Pioneer of Acetabular Surgery
On December 4, 1927, Emile Letournel was born in the archipelago of Saint Pierre et Miquelon, France, located south of Nova Scotia. In his youth, his uncle taught him carpentry and he became facile with a saw, a skill that served him well in his later life as an orthopedic surgeon. After finishing secondary school in Saint Pierre, he obtained a scholarship to the French Institute in London (which had been temporarily moved to Scotland due to World War II) and crossed the Atlantic alone on a troop ship in 1944.James Till and Ernest McCulloch: Hematopoietic Stem Cell Discoverers
Stamp Vignettes focus on biographical details and accomplishments related to science and medicine, and not individual views and prejudices except where they had a major impact on the subject's life. The authors of Stamp Vignettes do not intend to imply any endorsement of such views when discussing a Stamp Vignette on Medical Science.
