Tag: James L. Franklin
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Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): The artist’s hand
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States In 1588, when Hendrick Goltzius created this striking drawing (Fig. 1) of his deformed right hand, the thirty-year old Haarlem draftsman and engraver was already one of the most influential, well-recognized artists in Europe. In a sense, the drawing was his signature writ large, as evidenced in an anecdote…
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Rembrandt: Tobias Healing His Father’s Blindness
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn’s Tobias Healing his Father’s Blindness, painted in 1636, depicts the climactic moment in the Book of Tobit when Tobias returns to his father’s home and instills the gall (bile) he had taken from a giant fish into his blind father’s eyes, thereby restoring his sight.1…
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From “punch drunk” to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States At a critical moment in the second act of Terrance Blanchard’s opera Champion, based on the life of the boxer Emile Alphonse Griffith, Emile’s trainer Howie Albert asks the fighter, whose boxing career is in a steep decline, if he can remember a sequence of three simple words: “school,…
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Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012): “Chance favors the prepared mind”
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States On December 10, 1986, Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in neurobiology and for the discovery of “nerve growth factor” (NGF) that has since shed light on tumors, wound healing, and other medical problems. Levi-Montalcini was the first Italian…
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From candles and swallowing swords to gastroscopy
George DuneaJames L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States In 1806, Philipp Bozzini of Mainz invented an instrument designed to explore the interior of the human body that he called the “Lichtleiter” (light conductor). It had a candle or an oil lamp as a source of light, and he used it to look at the ears, nose,…
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Steller’s Sea eagle: Who was Georg Wilhelm Steller?
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States A solitary Steller’s Sea eagle near the bank of the Zhupanova River on the eastern shore of the Kamchatka peninsula. Unless otherwise specified, all photos by author. The Steller’s Sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) handily outsizes the national bird of the United States, the Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus).…
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Wilson on the couch: How Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt, an American diplomat, came to analyze the American president
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Harris & Ewing Collection, Library of Congress. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. In December 1966, Houghton Mifflin Company published Thomas Woodrow Wilson: Twenty-Eighth President of the United States, A Psychological Study by Sigmund Freud and William C. Bullitt. The curious fact that Sigmund Freud, the…
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“My dear neoplasm:” Sigmund Freud’s oral cancer
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United states Sigmund Freud circa 1921. Photo by Max Halberstadt. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. When the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, died in London early on the morning of September 23, 1939, he succumbed to what he wryly referred to as “my dear old cancer with which I have…
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Physical benefits of Salat prayers in Islam
Nicholas GhantousLondon, United Kingdom The five pillars of Islam are the foundation of the religion. They define a practicing Muslim’s identity and guide Muslims towards communally shared values and service to Allah (God). The pillars consist of the profession of faith, pilgrimage, alms, fasting, and prayer. The pillar of prayer is known as salat. The…