Day: January 30, 2017
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A tale of two cities: Swedish roots of electrophoresis
Frank WollheimLund, Sweden My title refers to two Swedish hospitals: one in Uppsala with its old and famous university, the other in Malmö, where academic activity started only in 1950 but soon acquired fame thanks to some charismatic leaders. My teachers, Jan Waldenström and Carl-Bertil Laurell, both started training in Uppsala, but crowned their career…
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Hubris syndrome – A moment in history?
Lord David Owen has written extensively about politicians and heads of state who became insufferable from being intoxicated by the power of their office. He called this aberration from gentlemanly behavior the hubris syndrome, an acquired personality disorder that most often went away after they left office. Hubris has come down to us from the…
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The death of Charles II
King Charles II of England, son of Charles I, grandson of Henri IV of Navarre and Marie de Medici, and great grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, was 18 years old when his father was deposed and executed on January 30, 1649. He reigned as king of England from 1660 to 1685. Charles was tall,…
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The last illness of King Edward VI (1537–1553)
Son of Henry VIII and of his third wife Jane Seymour, Edward became king of England at the age of nine and reigned for only a little over six years. Because of the importance of having a male heir, his father took every precaution to preserve him from any contagion and especially from contact with…
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Lord Moran’s secret
On December 7, 1941, Winston Churchill heard the news that America had been attacked at Pearl Harbor and that Britain was no longer alone in the war. He immediately decided to visit President Roosevelt in Washington in order to coordinate their attack and defense strategy.1 Arriving in Washington after nearly 10 days at sea, the…
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The fatal illness of Prince Albert
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, husband and prince consort of Queen Victoria, died on December 14, 1861, leaving his adoring wife in such a state of dejection that she avoided public appearances for years and wore black for the rest of her life. Statues erected in various cities of the sprawling British empire often bore the…
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The last days of George Washington
When George Washington developed laryngitis and shortness of breath in 1799, his doctors used poultices, enemas, and opened his veins to remove almost half of all his blood in 12 hours. Shown on his deathbed in a painting recently dubbed Death by Malpractice, the first president of the United States was 67 years old at…
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William Pitt: Father and son
Two great political figures, William Pitt the Elder (later to become Lord Chatham) and William Pitt the Younger, shaped the destinies of Great Britain during the second half of the eighteenth century. The father was the main architect of England’s victory in the Seven Years War (in America the French-Indian War). The son became the youngest…
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The Emperor Maximilian II and his physicians
Maximilian II (1527–1576) of the House of Habsburg was Holy Roman Emperor as well as king of Bohemia, Croatia, and Hungary. The Emperor . . . had long suffered from gout, from heart attacks, from bouts of “kidney colic,” [and] quite possibly syphilis, that had been sweeping across Europe since the turn of the 16th century.…
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King Henry VIII: More ailments than wives
The younger sons of medieval kings would generally be doomed to live out their lives in relative obscurity unless raised to the crown by courtesy of the plague, smallpox, or pneumonia. Such was the case of Henry VIII, remembered among other achievements for his seven wives but also by his many bodily illnesses. He became…