[New study on the history of anesthesiology--(12). A biography of Seigo Minami, the first to describe crush syndrome].
Crush syndrome causes a social concern as we experienced in the devastating earthquake in Kobe area in 1995. In the laboratory of Prof. Pick of Berlin, Seigo Minami (1893-1975), a dermatologist, made a detailed microscopic study of the kidneys of three German soldiers in 1922. They had died from renal failure caused by traumatic injuries during the World War 1. Minami concluded that the common cause of their deaths was "Autointoxication" due to necrotic breakdown of damaged muscles. His paper appeared in Virchows Archiv in 1923. This is the first description of crush syndrome in the world. Thereafter Minami joined the members of Prof. Warburg, Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute to investigate respiration and glycolysis of cancer tissues of rats. This research made an important contribution to the works of Prof. Warburg to whom a Nobel prize for medicine and physiology was awarded in 1931. Minami's name as the first describer of crush syndrome remains quite unknown in Japan, although almost all Japanese dermatologists know him by Minami Prize of Japanese Society of Dermatology.
Department of Anesthesiology, Hirosaki University, School of Medicine, Hirosaki 036-8563.
Akitomo
A
Matsuki
D003444:Crush Syndrome / Q000266:history*; D003880:Dermatology / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan