page_title: Mark E. Silverman
section_title: Emory University Hospital
hierarchical_section_title: Mark E. Silverman / Career / Emory University Hospital
caption_attribution_description: English: Emory University Hospital Front Entrance
context_page_description: Mark Edwin Silverman MD MACP FRCP FACC, was an American cardiologist, medical historian, medical educator and author of more than 200 medical articles and a number of books, who founded the cardiology program at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.
  Between 1966 and 1968, at the request of John Willis Hurst, he became a cardiology fellow at the Emory University in Atlanta. His interest in medical photographs led him to produce more than 24 articles on the value of images in the diagnosis of a number of diseases. In 1968, he co-authored an article with Hurst, titled The Hand and the Heart, illustrated with clinical pictures of findings in the hands of people with cardiovascular disease. They demonstrated, using a "Sherlock Holmesian approach", how the condition of the heart might be revealed by clues in the hands. The article made international headlines.
  In 1970, a faculty position at Piedmont Hospital was created for him by Hurst, and Silverman subsequently established its first cardiology program. Eight years later, he was made professor at Emory.
context_section_description: Silverman became interested in medical photography and produced a collection which drove him to publish more than 24 articles on the value of images in the diagnosis of a number of diseases. Between 1966 and 1968, at the request of Hurst, he became a cardiology fellow at the Emory University in Atlanta.
  In 1968, he wrote two articles with Hurst, one called "The mitral complex: Interaction of the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the mitral annulus, mitral valve leaflets, chordae tendineae, and papillary muscles" and the other titled "The Hand and the Heart", a topic Silverman also presented to the Laennec Society of the American Heart Association. The article was illustrated with 24 pictures of findings in the hands of people with cardiovascular disease. They demonstrated, using what they described as a "Sherlock Holmesian approach", how the condition of the heart might be revealed by clues in the hands. He begins with a quote from Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887):
  Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look for. By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs – by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.
  It made international headlines. Subsequently, Silverman co-authored a section on inspection in the second edition (1970) of Hurst's classic cardiology textbook The Heart. He remained affiliated with the Emory for the rest of his medical career, teaching students, nurses and residents.
caption: Emory University Hospital Front Entrance
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