Tag: Hungary
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The wayward Paracelsus
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Fig 1. Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus). Via Wikimedia. Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest Let no man be another’s who can be himself Paracelsus 1552 Paracelsus was the most original, controversial character of the Renaissance,1 who brazenly questioned and condemned the dictates of Galen and…
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Medical and other memories of the Cold War and its Iron Curtain
Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe Dundee, Scotland, UK Iron Curtain as described by Churchill 1946. Edited from original. Original by BigSteve via Wikimedia. (CC BY 1.0) In 1946, Winston Churchill named the political barrier appearing between the Soviet bloc and the West the “Iron Curtain.” It lasted until 1991. I met or crossed it several times. The…
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Budapest: medicine and paprika
L. J. Sandlow George Dunea Chicago, Illinois, United States The Magyars, ancestors of modern Hungarians, came from the region of the Ural Mountains and invaded Europe around AD 800. Crossing the Carpathian Mountains, they conquered the Pannonian plain and established a large and important medieval kingdom. In 1526 they were defeated at the decisive…
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Washing our hands
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece Winter Sunshine, Halkidiki, Greece. Photo by the author Ever since Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, washed his hands before condemning Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion, this simple act of personal sanitation has been used as the figurative icon of a disclaimer, the denial of responsibility. Today, in…
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Saint Elisabeth, a saintly nurse
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary bringing food for the inmates of a hospital. Wellcome Collection. CC BY-NC 4.0. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. Colored engraving by W. Langhammer. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–1231) is one of the most loved saints of the Middle Ages. Also called St. Elisabeth of Thuringia, she is the patron…
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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?: Erzsébet Báthory and the curative power of blood in medieval Europe
Joanna SmolenskiNew York, United States If the body is seen either as enclosed and filled with blood, or as vulnerable and bleeding, then blood can also only be interpreted either as life (when it fills the intact body) or as death (when it has left the body). (Bildhauer 2006: 5) In medieval Europe, blood played…
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Aging in (another) place: Magda Szabo’s novel Iza’s Ballad
Carol Levine New York, New York, United States Imprint II. Copyright 2017 Kelsey Hochstatter Represented by Third and Wall Art Group LLC, Seattle WA In Hungary in the early 1960s, Izabella (Iza) Szöcs is a physician, and a very good one, according to her patients and peers. Her specialty is rheumatology, but she makes…