Month: May 2017
-
Strokes
Stephen Mead Albany, New York, USA Commitment/Knowing, watercolor pencil on canvas paper Who am I? Nobody but myself. Here I lie, quite anchored, a hesitant child led by questions which assure proper response. I grant them whatever they want, a nod or a name. From them I expect nothing less and get plenty of,…
-
Joseph Babinski of the Babinski Sign
Joseph Babinski. Portrait by Deschiens. US National Library of Medicine. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. In 1848 populist revolutions swept across Europe, in Germany, France, and Italy—and also in Poland, where an uprising to gain independence from Russia was ruthlessly suppressed. To escape the repression that followed, Aleksander and Henryieta Babinski fled to France. Their son…
-
The blue pain
Shirali Raina Noida, India Deliverance Photography and digital effects by Shirali Raina His black smudged, The white blurred, Grey and only grey His shadowed world. Breathing in doubt, Breathing out dread. Angels in his heart, And demons in the head. His mind in tatters, Blue, blue the pain. Shunned and ragged, The world of…
-
Aequanimitas and apathy
Lee W. Eschenroeder Charlottesville, Virginia Sir William Osler On May 1, 1889, Sir William Osler, one of the greatest clinicians and educators of all time, stood before students at the University of Pennsylvania and delivered the valedictory address “Aequanimitas.” Since that day equanimity, or “imperturbability” as Osler also named it, has become one of…
-
Portraiture in the head and neck cancer clinic: A patient’s perspective
Mark GilbertHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada James E. Van ArsdallOmaha, Nebraska, United States I first met Scottish artist Mark Gilbert in 2013 as a participant in his Ph.D. dissertation study, “The Experience of Portraiture in Clinical Settings” [EPICS]. I was introduced to the study during a follow-up appointment with my head and neck cancer surgeon. Twelve…
-
New York Lungs
Slavena Salve Nissan New York City, NY, USA Corazonada Fernando Vicente do i have new york lungs like you? the same bits of black in my upper lobes? i sure hope i do i want my beloved city to leave its mark in me the way it did in you after that first time…
-
Kirkleatham Hospital
Stephen Martin Mahasarakham Figure 1. Kirkleatham Hospital Art and architecture in historic almshouses provided aesthetic pleasure, improved self-esteem and attended to spiritual need. An example of early Enlightenment philanthropy in the English village of Kirkleatham, Cleveland, provides major humanitarian lessons for the planners of today. East Cleveland was used to progressive thinking. A remarkable…
-
Episteme and translation in an annotated copy of the Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)
Sang Ik Song Adam S. Komorowski Limerick, Ireland Processes of Translation in European Medieval Medical Episteme Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine, pg 275: Hooper has underlined “nentaphyllon” and re-written the mis-transcription on the margin in Arabic. The episteme and movement of knowledge of medieval medicine in Europe is a syncretic, multifarious complexity that is often…
-
The morbid poet: Gottfried Benn, the morgue and the mysterious postcard
Annette Tuffs Heidelberg, Germany “Worst of all: not to die in summer, when everything is bright and the earth is easy on the spade.” So wrote the German poet Gottfried Benn (1886–1956), three years before his death, in the poem “What’s Bad”.1 But if the wrong timing of one’s death is the very worst…
-
Fog
Nicholas Feinberg New York City, New York, United States London in the Fog by Lesser Ury Outside their window, the sky is dark and the streets are empty. Fog slides off the lake and turns the pavement slick and black. The wet air is a blanket that quiets the city. Silence fills the space…