Month: November 2017
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Andrea Cesalpino (ca. 1520–1603)
Of the three 16th century Italian anatomists who advanced our knowledge about the pulmonary circulation, Andrea Cesalpino is perhaps the least known. Unlike Michael Servetus (c. 1511–1553) he was not burned at the stake for heresy. Unlike Realdo Colombo (c. 1515–1559) he did not carry out thousands of dissections and work with Michelangelo, and unlike…
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Realdo Colombo (ca. 1515–1559)
Although Italy during the Renaissance consisted of a mosaic of independent states, its inhabitants and particularly academicians seem to have moved freely from one city state to another. Thus it came about that the anatomist Matteo Realdo Colombo was born and educated in the principality of Milan (in philosophy and later as an apothecary); was…
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Giovanni Batista Morgagni (1602–1771)
Father of fifteen and teacher of thousands, Batista Morgagni became immortally famous by going one step further than his illustrious predecessors at Padua, describing not the normal anatomy of hanged criminals but the damaged organs of patients dying from disease. For this he is remembered as the father of pathological anatomy. At the University of…
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Michael Servetus (ca. 1511–1553)
Michael Servetus is remembered for being burned at the stake for heresy and for making important observations on the pulmonary circulation. In his Christianismi Restitutio, a theological treatise that touched on medicine, he postulated that blood in the body was divided into different segments (which he called God-ordained spirits): one in the arteries, one in…
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Gabriele Falloppio (Fallopius, 1523–1562)
In the days when the outcome of an oral examination could have depended on the caprices of a whimsical professor, candidates in obstetrics–gynecology might have been asked who first described the tube that leads from the ovary to the uterus, or perhaps who was Dr. Fallopius. Such a mishap is unlikely to happen in this…
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In translation
Michelle PonderPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States In my first year of clinical rotation in medical school there was no service as diverse as Psychosomatic Psychiatry. As a third year student I would run between consults; from a schizophrenic patient who believed he worked for Homeland Security, to a patient with several gunshot wounds and now likely…
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Japanese-American internment camps in World War Two
Gregory RuteckiCleveland, Ohio, United States Bill Mauldin’s cartoons regarding the NISEI15 “What constitutes an American? Not color…race…An American…(is) one in whose heart is engraved the immortal second sentence of the Declaration of Independence.”1 “Any person who considers himself…a member of Western Society inherits the Western past from Athens and Jerusalem to Runneymede and Valley Forge, as…
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Francis St. Vincent Morris: The pilot poet
Paul DakinNorth London, UK I discovered his original notebook and correspondence when sorting my late uncle’s effects. They were given to him by Morris’ sister Ruth. Francis St. Vincent Morris was a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. Three weeks after arriving in France he crashed in a snowstorm and died of his injuries at…
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The Jikei University Hospital, first charity hospital in Japan
Ruri AshidaTokyo, Japan The Jikei University Hospital stands in the middle of Tokyo near the governmental offices and Tokyo Tower. It was established in July 1882 as the first charity hospital in Japan; its original name, Yushi Kyoritsu Tokyo Byoin (Tokyo Charity Hospital), suggested that it was cooperatively supported by voluntary contributions. The founders were…