Year: 2017
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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 Ponder Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Approaching the patient: the rescuer comes in front of the patient, introduces herself, and asks the patient to squeeze her hand, in case she would be too weak to speak. Rama, December 2004. In my first year of clinical rotation in medical school there was no service as…
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Japanese-American internment camps in World War Two
Gregory Rutecki Cleveland, Ohio, United States Bill Mauldin’s cartoons regarding the NISEI 15 “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…
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Francis St. Vincent Morris: the pilot poet
Paul Dakin North London, UK Francis St. Vincent Morris 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…
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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…
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Birthday party
Laura White Rochester, Minnesota, United States I scan the chemotherapy data into the computer system, noting the date of birth listed at the top right of the screen. Happy birthday, I say, hanging the bag of liquid on the IV pole. Thanks, he replies, and we share a contemptuous laugh. It feels like a…
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“I shouldn’t know you again if we did meet”: prosopagnosia
Sylvia Karasu New York City, New York, United States Figure 1. Chuck Close, Self-Portrait (1997) (Museum of Modern Art, New York City) Watching Black Narcissus, the eerily unsettling film1 about an order of nuns cloistered in an isolated, windswept convent perched within the Himalayas, I am struggling to differentiate one nun from another. I see…
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Antonio Scarpa, anatomist (1752–1832)
Students graduating from a university not uncommonly leave and seek employment elsewhere, but by the excellence of their work attain great fame and as such repay their alma mater for their early education. This was the case of Antonio Scarpa. Entering the University of Padua at age fifteen, he studied under the famous Battista Morgagni…
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Ghabeleh Hamleh
Suzi Ehtesham-Zadeh Woodstock, Georgia, United States The refugee camp at night The pounding in Amana’s temples will not let up and is beginning to scare her. She has had headaches before, but this is different—it feels like something foreign has invaded her body and is occupying every square inch of it, from the tips…