Dr. Jacob Mendes da Costa

Jacob Mendez Da Costa,

American internist, born February 7, 1833, St. Thomas, West Indies; died 1900. Biography of Jacob Mendez Da Costa Jacob Mendez Da Costa, of Spanish and Portuguese extraction, was born to a wealthy family on St. Thomas, then still a Danish Colony,. The branch of the family to which he belonged had emigrated to England in the sixteenth century and subsequently became bankers and planters in the West Indies.

When four years old he left with his parents for Europe, where he received an excellent private education. From the age of thirteen he attended a gymnasium in Dresden together with his brother Charles. Here he studied classics and modern languages and became fluent in German and French, and could also read Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Dutch.

In 1845, at the age of sixteen, he decided for a medical career and went to Philadelphia, where his mother was then living, to study at Jefferson Medical College. Following graduation in 1852 he spent one and a half year in Paris where he was a favourite pupil of Armand Trousseau (1801-1867).

From Paris, where he also became well acquainted with the bookshops and restaurants in the Quartier Latin, he moved on to Prague and Vienna, working with the anatomist Joseph Hyrtl (1810-1894) in Vienna.

Da Costa returned to Philadelphia in 1853, aged 23. He opened office and became a physician to the dispensary attached to the Moyamensing House of Industry (1853-1861). While struggling to establish himself in practice, he began teaching students and postgraduates. His classes in physical diagnosis were particularly popular and resulted in his 690 pages work Medical Diagnosis (1864). The book established his fame in the United States and abroad and went through nine editions in the United States.

During the Civil War he served at the Military Hospital in Philadelphia and gathered much of the evidence for "his" syndrome. From 1861 to 1865 he was Acting Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army and physician at Turner's Lane Hospital, Philadelphia.

In 1865 Da Costa became Visiting Physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, a position he retained for 35 years. Besides this he was a very successful and popular physician. he began his tenure at Jefferson as Lecturer on Clinical Medicine in 1866 and became Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in 1872. He resigned in 1891, becoming Professor Emeritus. He achieved international reputation as a teacher, attracting pupils from far and wide.

A man of wide interests, both in the medical profession and elsewhere, Da Costa was a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston, the American Philosophical Society, the New England Historical and Genealogical Society, the Contemporary Club, the Mahogany Tree Club, the Wistar Association, and the Shakespeare Society. He had a passion for books and possessed a large library.

In 1860 Da Costa married Sarah, the sister of his friend and distinguished colleague, Professor John Hill Brinton (1832-1907). They had one son, Charles Frederick, who became a lawyer.

«All that goes on in medicine is to be the chief matter of interest to you. Hence you must be busy readers; and, as habits form, you will learn to look to medical journals with avidity, and new publications will be examined with keen relish. But to become distinguished, nay, to become even respectable in your profession, you must be something more than readers, you must become active thinkers and sifter of knowledge, learn, as Bacon counsels, to weigh and consider books.» Valedictory address, Jefferson Medical College, 1874. «We are, I think, in this busy age of ours, in great danger of over-estimating the value of more reading. It is often a lazy mode of half-culture, a kind of mental dissipation, relished the more because it is mingled with a feeling of self-satisfaction at following what seem an intellectual pursuit; a trouble-saving invention, indulged in fitfully, and without regard to its true purpose. That purpose is to make the knowledge sought completely our own, to examine it critically, and if fully satisfied with it, to adapt it so thoroughly as part of our mental organization, that we are not conscious of how it came there.» Valedictory address, Jefferson Medical College, 1874

source:

http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2452.html

Da Costa's disease/ Da Costa's syndrome

A disorder combining effort fatigue, dyspnea, a sighing respiration, palpitation, sweating, tremor, an aching sensation in the left praecordium, utter fatigue, an exaggeration of symptoms upon efforts, and occasionally complete syncope. Description A disorder combining effort fatigue, dyspnea, a sighing respiration, palpitation, sweating, tremor, an aching sensation in the left praecordium, utter fatigue, an exaggeration of symptoms upon efforts, and occasionally complete syncope. Symptoms and signs of this syndrome closely resemble those of emotion and fear, rather that those of «effort» in normal subject, and depend on central stimulation.

The disorder is most commonly seen in soldiers during time of stress, especially when an element og fear is involved. It was frequently observed in the American Civil War and World War I soldiers. It may also occur in young males or females who have suffered disruption in their emotional life.

The syndrome was first described by Arthur Bowen Richards Myers (1838-1921) in 1870. Da Costa’s publications in 1871 gave an account of observations made during the Civil War.

source: http://www.whonamedit.com/synd.cfm/2882.html

J. C. Wilson M.D. Document Type

Article Date

1902 Comments

Born on the Island of St. Thomas in the West Indies, Jacob Mendez Da Costa (1833-1900) took his pre-medical education in Dresden, Germany (1849-1952). An 1852 graduate of Jefferson Medical College, Da Costa spent 18 months in Europe for postgraduate training. His career included appointments as physician for the Moyamensing Dispensary (1853-1861), Acting Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army and physician at Turner's Lane Hospital (Philadelphia) (1861-1865), and visiting physician at Pennsylvania Hospital (1865-1900). Da Costa began his tenure at Jefferson as Lecturer on Clinical Medicine (1866-1872), became the Seventh Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College (1872-1891), and finally Professor Emeritus (1891-1900).

Through his research and writing, Da Costa influenced the emergence of internal medicine as a specialty. One of his most enduring contributions was his Civil War research on the irritable heart (neurocirculatory asthenia) in solders. His monograph Medical Diagnosis (1864) was the first work of its kind; it went through nine editions during Da Costa's lifetime. In 1860, Da Costa married Sarah Frederica Brinton (d.1889), the sister of John Hill Brinton, Da Costa’s classmate and faculty colleague at Jefferson Medical College. Da Costa died on 11 September 1900 in Villanova, Pennsylvania.

[from the Finding Aid for J.M. Da Costa papers] Rights

This content may be used for educational purposes as long as a credit statement is included. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. For permission to publish or reproduce and all other uses, contact the TJU Archives and Special Collections. Recommended Citation Wilson, J. C. M.D., "Memoir of J.M. Da Costa, M.D., LL.D: Read Before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, November 5, 1902" (1902). Jefferson Biographies. Paper 6. http://jdc.jefferson.edu/jeffbiographies/6

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Jacob Mendes Da Costa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Portrait of Da Costa by Thomas Eakins

Jacob Mendes Da Costa, or Jacob Mendez Da Costa (February 7, 1833, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Caribbean – September 12, 1900) was an American physician.

He is particularly known for discovering Da Costa's syndrome (also known as soldier's heart), an anxiety disorder combining effort fatigue, dyspnea, a sighing respiration, palpitation and sweating that he first observed in soldiers in the American Civil War and documented in an 1871 study.[1]

He was born into the small community of Sephardi Jews on St. Thomas, then still a Danish colony. At the age of four, Da Costa left the island for mainland Europe, where he attended gymnasium. As a result of his childhood travel and international education, Da Costa originally wanted to enter the foreign service. However, his mother encouraged him to attend medical school.[2] He applied to enter Jefferson Medical College (now Thomas Jefferson University) and earned his medical degree in 1852. During the Civil War he served as a physician at the Military Hospital as well as Turner's Lane Hospital, Philadelphia. It was during this period that he gathered much of the evidence that used in his 1871 study of anxiety disorders.

He later taught at the Jefferson Medical College (now Thomas Jefferson University), where he became a respected and sought after lecturer.

Da Costa's interest in the humanities remained with him throughout his life. He believed that a truly gifted physician required a knowledge of both science and art. In 1883, he told the graduating class of Jefferson Medical College that,

   I think that the cultivation of the humane letters has the most distinct bearing on the cultivation and appreciation of science. Science is nothing without imagination; and imagination is most readily kept fresh by literature. What little good there is a mere descriptive person, and in the small facts which with painful toil he accumulates. But let these facts be welded together by thought, their bearing traced by imagination, experiments devised by the mind projecting itself in advance of them, and the plodder is likely to become the great discoverer.[3]

In 1860 he married Sarah Brinton, the sister of his friend and colleague, Professor John Hill Brinton (1832–1907). Their only son, Charles Frederick, became a lawyer.

He died on September 12, 1900, and was buried at Woodlands Cemetery (photo: here).

Contents

   1 Irritable Heart

   2 Literary works

   3 References

   4 External links

Irritable Heart

Jacob Da Costa worked at Satterlee Hospital in Philadelphia during the American Civil War. While there, he studied over 400 patients with non-specific cardiac complaints. As a result of these studies, he identified a new condition he termed "irritable heart" (sometimes called Da Costa Syndrome) in 1862. By 1871 he published his landmark study of the condition.[4] Literary works Jacob Mendes Da Costa.jpg

   Philadelphia portal 

Medical Diagnosis, 1864

   "Observations on the diseases of the heart noticed among soldiers, particularly the organic diseases" in Contributions relating to the Causation and Prevention of Disease, and to Camp Diseases; together with a Report of the Diseases, etc., Among the Prisoners at Andersonville, GA (New York: United States Sanitary Commission by Hurd and Houghton, 1867).

References

"Jacob Mendez Da Costa - Who Named It?". whonamedit.com. 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-15. Korbin, Nancy H.; Korbin, Jerry L. (October 1, 1999). "J. M. da Costa, M.D.—A tinok she-nishbah?: An American Civil War Converso Physician". Shofar. 18 (1): 22 in pages 16–39. JSTOR 42942980. Da Costa, Jacob (April 2, 1883). The Higher Professional Life: Valedictory Address to the Graduating Class of Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippencott & Co. p. 11; 18.

   Da Costa, Jacob M. (January 1871). "On Irritable Heart: a Clinical Study of a Form of Functional Cardiac Disorder and its Consequences". American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 61 (121): 17–52. Retrieved 2012-04-25.