HEROES OF MEDICINE

Click any photo to see it enlarged.

front

Cachet: The cachet shows four portraits painted in a loose, expressive watercolour style, arranged in a cluster on the left side of the cover. Each face is rendered with visible brushstrokes and warm earthy tones, giving the group a painterly, textured quality rather than a photographic likeness. The men vary in age and styling, with beards, moustaches and receding hairlines individualising each figure against the plain cream background. Below the portraits the cover reads "Heroes of Medicine" in a flowing cursive script.

Info card

HEROES OF MEDICINE Third set of the series 11c stamp Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) Nicholas of Cusa, also known as Cusanus, was born in Kues in 1401. He was not only a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, but also a mathematician of note, and an experimental scientist. He made many discoveries in astronomy and botany, and was the first author to record the use of concave lenses to correct visual defects, thus paving the way for the development of modern optometry and the manufacture of spectacles. 25c stamp William Morton (1819–1868) William Thomas Green Morton was born in New York in 1819 and began practice as a dentist in 1844. After witnessing unsuccessful attempts by his partner to develop the use of analgesic chemicals, he consulted a Boston chemist, Charles Jackson, who suggested the use of ether. In 1846 Morton successfully used ether as an anaesthetic in tooth extraction, and so paved the way for the development of anaesthesia in surgery. 30c stamp Wilhelm Röntgen (1845–1923) Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen was born in Lennep, Prussia (now West Germany) on March 27, 1845. He was Professor of Physics at the University of Würzburg when he discovered X-rays in 1895. Since he was uncertain of the exact nature of the radiation, he named it "X-ray". His discovery was soon put to clinical use and revolutionized diagnostic medicine and surgery. Röntgen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901. 45c stamp Karl Landsteiner (1868–1943) Karl Landsteiner was born in Vienna in 1868 and became Professor of Pathology at the University of Vienna. His scientific research led to his discovery of blood groups in 1900, a development which permitted the safe transfusion of human blood. In 1930 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to him in recognition of this major contribution to medical science. In 1908 he succeeded in transmitting poliomyelitis to monkeys, thus permitting the isolation of the polio virus and the development of vaccines against the disease.

Additional information

This cover is postmarked in October 1984 in Umtata. The four stamps depict Nicholas of Cusa, William Morton, Wilhelm Röntgen and Karl Landsteiner, forming the third set in Transkei's Heroes of Medicine series, each honouring a different milestone in medical history. Nicholas of Cusa's contribution predates the others by several centuries, as his 15th century observations on corrective lenses laid groundwork that modern optometry would only formalise hundreds of years later. Landsteiner and Röntgen, by contrast, were both still working within living memory of many collectors when this set was issued, having each received a Nobel Prize for discoveries that remain in daily clinical use today.

You might also like

MEDICINAL PLANTS OF TRANSKEI

1981-04-15

FISHING-FLIES CRAFTED IN TRANSKEI 3

1983-03-02

Port St Johns

1986-02-06