{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,31]],"date-time":"2025-12-31T11:09:37Z","timestamp":1767179377045,"version":"build-2238731810"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.12688\/wellcomeopenres.17759.1","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,20]],"date-time":"2023-11-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1700438400000}}],"reference-count":25,"publisher":"F1000 Research Ltd","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,20]],"date-time":"2023-11-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1700438400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010269","name":"Wellcome Trust","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["104830"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["104830"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010269","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["wellcomeopenresearch.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Wellcome Open Res"],"abstract":"<ns3:p>Philosopher Frank Ramsey died in 1930 aged only 26. There has been much speculation about the nature of his final illness and the sequence of events which led to his death. To prepare this case report, we traced Ramsey\u2019s medical records and combined them with an extensive and unique dataset of contemporaneous sources. We use these to evaluate three possible explanations for Ramsey\u2019s illness and its unexpectedly fatal trajectory\u2014infectious (Weil\u2019s disease), autoimmune (primary sclerosing cholangitis) and obstructive (gallstones). We explore how uncertainty surrounding each of these possibilities might have influenced Ramsey\u2019s doctors\u2019 thoughts and actions, including their ill-fated decision to perform the emergency operation that appears to have precipitated his final decline. We then reflect on the unfinished opus on which Ramsey was working when he died\u2014on the nature of truth and how humans reason under conditions of uncertainty. We end with some thoughts linking Ramsey\u2019s death to his philosophy.<\/ns3:p>","DOI":"10.12688\/wellcomeopenres.17759.2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,20]],"date-time":"2023-11-20T05:05:11Z","timestamp":1700456711000},"page":"158","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.12688\/wellcomeopenres.crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Case Report: What\u2014or who\u2014killed Frank Ramsey? Some reflections on cause of death and the nature of medical reasoning"],"prefix":"10.12688","volume":"7","author":[{"given":"Cheryl","family":"Misak","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"C David","family":"Naylor","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mark","family":"Tonelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2369-8088","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Trisha","family":"Greenhalgh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Graham","family":"Foster","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"2560","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref-1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"741-56","DOI":"10.1177\/003591573703000628","article-title":"The Epidemiology of Weil's Disease: (Section of Epidemiology and State Medicine).","volume":"30","author":"J Alston","year":"1937","journal-title":"P ROY SOC MED."},{"key":"ref-19","article-title":"A Complete System of Nursing.","author":"A Ashdown","year":"1929"},{"key":"ref-20","article-title":"Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582"},{"key":"ref-2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"49-61","DOI":"10.1016\/0306-4573(95)00049-M","article-title":"The History of Information Infrastructures: The Case of the International Classification of Diseases.","volume":"32","author":"G Bowker","year":"1996","journal-title":"INFORM PROCESS MANAG."},{"key":"ref-3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"521-36","DOI":"10.1053\/j.gastro.2013.06.052","article-title":"Pathogenesis of primary sclerosing cholangitis and advances in diagnosis and management.","volume":"145","author":"J Eaton","year":"2013","journal-title":"Gastroenterology."},{"key":"ref-4","first-page":"271-80","article-title":"The case for intervention bias in the practice of medicine.","volume":"86","author":"A Foy","year":"2013","journal-title":"Yale J Bio Med."},{"key":"ref-21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"402-403","DOI":"10.3399\/bjgp16X686221","article-title":"Mindlines: making sense of evidence in practice.","volume":"66","author":"J Gabbay","year":"2016","journal-title":"Brit J Gen Pract."},{"key":"ref-5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"497-504","DOI":"10.1113\/jphysiol.1901.sp000848","article-title":"The colorimetric determination of h\u00e6moglobin.","volume":"26","author":"J Haldane","year":"1901","journal-title":"J Physiol."},{"key":"ref-22","first-page":"1","article-title":"The Common Law.","author":"O Holmes","year":"1882"},{"key":"ref-6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"225-41","DOI":"10.1007\/BF00489447","article-title":"\"Don't think zebras\": uncertainty, interpretation, and the place of paradox in clinical education.","volume":"17","author":"K Hunter","year":"1996","journal-title":"Theor Med."},{"key":"ref-7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"389-391","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.271.5.389","article-title":"Users' guides to the medical literature. 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The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.","order":4,"name":"grant-information","label":"Grant Information"},{"value":"This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.","order":0,"name":"copyright-info","label":"Copyright"}]}}