![Jacob Mendes Da Costa c1880](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Jacob_Mendes_Da_Costa_c1880.jpg)
Jacob Mendes Da Costa, or Jacob Mendez Da Costa (February 7, 1833,
Saint Thomas, Danish Virgin Islands, Caribbean – September 12, 1900) was an American
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
.
He is particularly known for discovering
Da Costa's syndrome
Da Costa's syndrome (also known as "soldier's heart", cardiac neurosis, chronic asthenia, effort syndrome, functional cardiovascular disease, neurocirculatory asthenia, primary neurasthenia, subacute asthenia and irritable heart) is a psychiatr ...
(also known as soldier's heart), an
anxiety disorder
Anxiety disorders are a cluster of mental disorders characterized by significant and uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear such that a person's social, occupational, and personal function are significantly impaired. Anxiety may cause physi ...
combining effort fatigue,
dyspnea
Shortness of breath (SOB), also medically known as dyspnea (in AmE) or dyspnoea (in BrE), is an uncomfortable feeling of not being able to breathing, breathe well enough. The American Thoracic Society defines it as "a subjective experience of brea ...
, a sighing respiration, palpitation and sweating that he first observed in soldiers in the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
and documented in an 1871 study.
He was born into the small community of
Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
on St. Thomas, then still a
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
colony
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the ''metropole, metropolit ...
. At the age of four, Da Costa left the island for mainland Europe, where he attended gymnasium. As a result of his childhood travel and international education, Da Costa originally wanted to enter the foreign service. However, his mother encouraged him to attend medical school. He applied to enter
Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
(now
Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
) and earned his medical degree in 1852. During the Civil War he served as a physician at the Military Hospital as well as Turner's Lane Hospital, Philadelphia. It was during this period that he gathered much of the evidence that used in his 1871 study of anxiety disorders.
He later taught at the
Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
(now
Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University is a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Established in its earliest form in 1824, the university officially combined with Philadelphia University in 2017. To signify its heritage, the univer ...
), where he became a respected and sought after lecturer.
Da Costa's interest in the humanities remained with him throughout his life. He believed that a truly gifted physician required a knowledge of both science and art. In 1883, he told the graduating class of Jefferson Medical College that,
I think that the cultivation of the humane letters has the most distinct bearing on the cultivation and appreciation of science. Science is nothing without imagination; and imagination is most readily kept fresh by literature. What little good there is a mere descriptive person, and in the small facts which with painful toil he accumulates. But let these facts be welded together by thought, their bearing traced by imagination, experiments devised by the mind projecting itself in advance of them, and the plodder is likely to become the great discoverer.
In 1860 he married Sarah Brinton, the sister of his friend and colleague, Professor John Hill Brinton (1832–1907). Their only son, Charles Frederick, became a lawyer.
He was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1866.
He died on September 12, 1900, and was buried at Woodlands Cemetery (photo
here.
Irritable Heart
![Jacob Mendez Dacosta G270](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Jacob_Mendez_Dacosta_G270.png)
Jacob Da Costa worked at Satterlee Hospital in Philadelphia during the American Civil War. While there, he studied over 400 patients with non-specific cardiac complaints. As a result of these studies, he identified a new condition he termed "irritable heart" (sometimes called
Da Costa Syndrome) in 1862. By 1871 he published his landmark study of the condition.
Literary works
![Jacob Mendes Da Costa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Jacob_Mendes_Da_Costa.jpg)
* ''Medical Diagnosis'', 1864
* "Observations on the diseases of the heart noticed among soldiers, particularly the organic diseases" in ''Contributions relating to the Causation and Prevention of Disease, and to Camp Diseases; together with a Report of the Diseases, etc., Among the Prisoners at Andersonville, GA'' (New York: United States Sanitary Commission by Hurd and Houghton, 1867).
References
External links
Jacob Mendes Da CostaBrief biography, Notable Jefferson Alumni
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Costa, Jacob Mendes da
1833 births
1900 deaths
American Civil War surgeons
American Sephardic Jews
Physicians from Philadelphia
Thomas Jefferson University faculty
Burials at The Woodlands Cemetery
Physicians from the United States Virgin Islands