Month: March 2017
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Pantaleon or Pantaleimon—A most noble physician
Maria MonteiroPorto, Portugal As information about the life of Saint Pantaleon is entangled with tradition, it difficult to distinguish myth from facts. Nevertheless, according to several sources, Pantaleon was born c. AD 275, son of the rich pagan Eustorgius of Nicomedia. His name means “a lion in everything.” Later he would be renamed Pantaleímon (from…
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About face: from revulsion to compassion
Sylvia R. Karasu New York City, New York, United States L’antigrazioso (“Anti-graceful”) by Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), demonstrating an artist’s abstract rendition of asymmetrical, deformed features.4 Skin Graft (Transplantation) (1924) by Otto Dix1 Winter, 1563 by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593) demonstrating an artist’s rendition of grossly deformed features5 “I was too ugly to go to school,”…
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Hume and autism-causing vaccines
Trevor Klee Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States A portrait of the delightfully corpulent David Hume. Ramsay, Allan. David Hume, 1711-1776. Historian and philosopher. 1766. Scottish National Portrait Gallery. 8 In 1998 the British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield announced a startling discovery in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet. He had found that…
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Frances Oldham Kelsey: A medical profile in courage
Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey.3 Her name has disappeared into the vault of medical history and her dedication to scientific rigor and patient safety has been largely forgotten. Yet her silent but tangible legacy continues to this day. Born in Canada in 1914, Frances Oldham Kelsey received a…
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Waiting for results
Susan Anderson Madison, Wisconsin, United States Time displayed on clock. Submission by Susan Anderson You do not realize you have been holding your breath for weeks, until you see the new email hinting the results are in. You do not realize the tension you are feeling because you have put all feelings…
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A year in oblivion – an artistic journey
Mara Buck Windsor, Maine, United States My grandmother had a saying, “What is, is. What ain’t, ain’t.” Simplistic to the core, but truth often is just that. Her saying did not apply to cancer because cancer did not run in our family. That is, not before me. It has been a couple decades since…
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Mixing medicine – Religion and science
Aneesa BodiatSouth Africa The ameer chewed on the dry date my husband had presented to him, saying a prayer and then placing the chewed fruit back into the container, sealing it for use in a few days when my baby boy would be born. This particular ameer or religious leader was from Medina, the holy…
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Music and the brain
Rayda Joomun Mauritius “The piano keys are black and white but they sound like a million colours in your mind” – Maria Cristina Mena Music brings a smile to our faces. Yet this abstract entity has no conventional defining criteria. Proust acknowledged this: “Music helped me to descend into myself, to discover new things; the…
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Was the Mozart Effect evident before the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?
Harishnath Ramachandran England, United Kingdom “Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.” – Plato Statue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) taken by Mrs. Sanju Ramachandran (Vienna 2009) The word music is derived from the Greek word “mousike”, meaning art of the muses. It is considered a form of…