Let me explain the post title. Cystic fibrosis is not communicable, but we would not know much about it without the work of one doctor. I found the story via an unattributed (probably AI) bit of copypasta that's making the rounds on Facebook. The story was worth checking out, so that's how I learned of Dr. Dorothy Andersen.
Today, we recognize cystic fibrosis as a genetic condition that affects the lungs. In the Middle Ages, it was a digestive illness identified by salty skin in children, confirmed after death as a problem with the pancreas, and attributed to witchcraft. In the early 20th century, young children who died of CF were often diagnosed with celiac disease, because they starved to death despite eating ravenously. Dorothy Hansine Andersen became a doctor in 1926, but couldn't get into the boy's club of surgeons, so she became a pathologist. She found some strange results in a 3-year-old girl whose cause of death was listed as celiac disease, and sought out other cases of celiac disease in children. She found 49 cases in which the same constellation of abnormalities was found (cysts in the pancreas, thick mucus in the lungs, etc.). She named it and developed diagnostic tests, first by sampling the intestines and later by measuring sweat salt. Andersen went on to deem CF a recessive genetic disease.
Andersen also developed treatments for CF, which sorted out the digestive issues and led to the modern focus on the disease as a lung problem. Her discoveries led to CF patients living decades longer, but she rarely got the proper credit for her work. Read Dr. Andersen's story at Wikipedia. -Thanks, Patrice!
(Image source: the National Library of Medicine)
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