Intro to Clin Chem

Chapter 1

clinical chemistry

an applied science when analyses are preformed on body fluids or tissue specimens to provide important information for the diagnosis or treatment of disease

Egyptian and Mesopotamian

_________ and _________ doctors made diagnosis by listening to internal body sounds and palpating areas of the body

400 B.C.

When were observations made on urine specimens?

Hippocrates

Father of Medicine

• tasting the patient’s urine

• listening to the lungs

• observing the patient’s appearance

Hippocrates’s methods for diagnosis

300 B.C. (ancient Greece)

Year when Hippocrates lived

A.D. 50

a physician in Ephesus discovers hematuria

1600s

• microscope was invented

• blood circulation was described

• discovery of precipitating urine protein using heat and acid

Late 1700s

• first tests of urine using yeast

• sugar was discovered to be the source of sweetness in the urine of diabetics

1850s

laboratory medicine became more accepted

1890s

laboratory tests were performed by physicians using microscopes

1918

the American College of Surgeons required hospitals to have an adequately equipped and staffed laboratory

1920s

• almost half of the USA had laboratories

• clinical methods for measuring phosphorus and magnesium in serum was introduced

Folin-Ciocalteau

reagent Otto Folin created

Otto Folin

man who created several methods for determining urine analytes

1930s

• refractometer was 1st used for measuring protein in urine

• clinical determinations of ALP, ACP, serum LPS, serum and urine AMS, and blood NH3 were developed

Beckman Instruments

founded and introduced the first pH meter to measure the acidity and alkalinity of fluids

1940s

development of photoelectric colorimeters and vacuum collection tube for blood

• College of American Pathologists (CAP)

• American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC)

organizations related to Clinical Chemistry founded in the 1940s

Levey and Jennings

adapted the Shewhart QC Chart to be used in the clinical lab

1950s

• a method was developed to measure several enzymes and blood triglycerides

• flame photometry

• AutoAnalyzer

Technicon Corporation

introduced the AutoAnalyser

1960

• laser developed

• first mechanical pipetter

• first random access analyzer for clin chem

Perkin-Elmer

introduced the atomic absorption spectrophotometer for the determination of calcium and magnesium

Auto Dilutor

first mechanical pipetter

Becton Dickon

introduced the disposable needle and syringe

IBM

developed Disk Storage computers

DuPont

introduced the first random-access analyzer for clinical chemistry