History of Medicine
Whipple of Whipple’s Triad
1Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias/University of Oviedo, Spain; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA), Oviedo, Spain
2Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias/University of Oviedo, Spain; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA), Oviedo, Spain; Department of Medicine, University of Oviedo, Spain; Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
2Department of Endocrinology and Nutrition, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias/University of Oviedo, Spain; Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA), Oviedo, Spain; Department of Medicine, University of Oviedo, Spain; Centre for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
J Clin Pract Res 2023; 45(6): 655-657 DOI: 10.14744/cpr.2023.03511
Abstract
Allen Oldfather (A. O.) Whipple (1881–1963) is renowned for giving rise to two medical ep-onyms: Whipple’s Triad, for the diagnostic criteria in hypoglycemia, and Whipple’s proce-dure, for the cephalic duodenopancreatectomy. Notably, A. O. Whipple’s life coincided with that of the unrelated George Hoyt Whipple, who is credited with the third eponymous Whip-ple in medicine – Whipple’s disease, or intestinal lipodystrophy. Nearly a century after its first description, Whipple’s Triad continues to be a valuable tool, comprising a set of symptoms and laboratory data that raise the clinical suspicion of hypoglycemia resulting from endog-enous hyperinsulinism.
Keywords: Whipple, history, triad, insulinoma, hypoglycaemia.