One way many physicians and Dr. - in - training hone their symptomatic skills is by attend clinicopathological conferences ( CPCs ) . CPC attender get a patient ’s clinical sum-up , which contains all sorts of information that will prove utile in cracking the typesetter’s case . A CPC is n’t supposed to be comfortable - to - solve closed book , but rather a deductive reasoning workout . This workout may be a quotidian part of some doctor ’ lives , but there is one CPC is anything but routine . TheHistorical CPCis purely VIP — reviewing the death of historical chassis .
Hosted by theUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine , the Historical CPC has met every year since 1995 to brush up the case of a historical figure . Charles Darwin , Edgar Allan Poe , Florence Nightingale , Akhenaten , Joan of Arc , andPresident Abraham Lincolnhave all been patients in recent years . This year ’s subject was Vladimir Lenin , whose grounds of death was known . Why , then , was Lenin selected ? causa presenter , neurologist and neuropathologist Dr. Harry Vinters , explained the choice in a press release :
“ What happened to Lenin is not a mystery , ” Dr. Vinters says . “ The autopsy determination and history are classic of slash . But our interrogative is , what was the cause of those chance event in a comparatively immature and otherwise intelligent world ? ”

so as to answer that query , Dr. Vinters first had to assemble a clinical summary for Lenin , a task that for many diachronic public figure is no simple effort . Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak , creator of the Historical CPC , has detailed the challenges of produce clinical summaries for diachronic image in his bookPost - Mortem : figure out account ’s Great Medical Mysteries :
… the historical record from which clinical summary are come differ in important respects from contemporary aesculapian record . In most cases , the only available medical histories were written by non - physicians , whose appreciation for and verbal description of significant clinical details was limited .
⁞

In some cases , medical histories were almost certainly distorted
for personal gain or in compliance to political agenda .
Some accounts were written years after the fact , and fading memories may have engage a toll on their accuracy .

Finally , there is the reluctance of those who look for answers in the medical record of account ’s illuminati to take on average diseases as causes of the deaths of extraordinary persons , as well as a penchant for diagnosing disorders that are the exceptional interests of those proffer diagnoses .
In Lenin ’s case , evidence of average ol’ coronary artery disease ( hardening of the blood vessels ) wasnoted by Dr. Vintersas a contributor to Lenin ’s demise . Why Lenin developed atheroscleriosis seems the mystery . Lenin did n’t have most major significant risk of exposure factors for atherosclerosis ( smoking , obesity , and gamy blood pressure ) . As Dr. Vinters excuse in apress passing , Lenin was known to have one risk of infection agent :
“ He led an extremely stressful life , ” says Dr. Vinters . “ People were always seek to assassinate him , for example . We all have a go at it what stress is , but everyone respond to it differently . It is not exonerated how it affect him . ”

The exact cause of Lenin ’s cerebrovascular disease is still a secret , but the Historical CPC has stricken one possible causal agent of cerebrovascular disease off the leaning . Dr. Vinters explains in a press release :
“ Meningovascular syphilis has clear-cut characteristic in the brain . The infarcts , or strokes , are usually very small in syphilis . I did n’t see evidence of that . The other vessel that is usually pretend by syphilis is the aorta , and that characteristic is not describe in the autopsy , either . It is very unlikely that he would have had pox . ”
opinion causes out , adding other causes in – just received exercise for any CPC . This CPC just happens to count some of history ’s most influential shape as its patients .

[ viaMSNBCand theUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine ]
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