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
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.