Chapter 1 - Aerosol Medicine in the Past Fifty Years and the Role of ISAM
Michael Newhouse, MD, Helger Hauck, PhD, and Heinrich Matthys, MD, PhD
Introduction
When Rajiv Dhand, Editor-in-Chief of this Aerosol E-book, asked me to write a history of ISAM and the initial decades of modern aerosol therapy, I felt somewhat daunted by his request, considering the many colleagues that, with their ideas and the advent
of advanced physiological concepts and equipment, had initiated and developed aerosol medicine as a scientific discipline in the “neonatal” years of our sub-sub specialty starting in the 1950s. I knew that, like me, many colleagues started their aerosol
research units virtually from scratch, each with their own story of how they were attracted to aerosol research and how they were able to raise the necessary funds from private donors, government grants and industry. Of course, none of this occurred
in a vacuum, and as Newton stated so artfully, we too “stood on the shoulders of giants” as we were trained to ask questions at the bedside and seek answers in the lab for the benefit of our patients. Additionally, we undertook many collaborations
with colleagues with whom we exchanged ideas and had the joy of interacting with research fellows without whom we could not have accomplished so much.
