Month: August 2018
-
Karl A. Meyer (1888–1972)
For over half a century, Dr. Karl Meyer was the absolute ruler of what under his command became the largest public hospital in the United States, the Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He interned there in 1908, joined its staff as attending surgeon in 1918, and at the age of 28 was appointed hospital superintendent.…
-
Robert M. Kark (1911–2002)
In the 1950’s, Robert Kark and his team of Robert C. Muehrcke, Victor Pollak, and Conrad Pirani became, for a short time, the dominant force in American nephrology by popularizing the use of kidney biopsy as a diagnostic tool. This technique had first been described by Scandinavian investigators with somewhat limited success, but the Kark team…
-
Christian Fenger (1840–1902)
Danish born Christian Fenger practiced pathology and surgery in Chicago over a century ago and made such an impact on education that a public school in his adopted city is still named after him. As a young man he studied medicine in Copenhagen, completed his internship there, served in the 1865 war against Germany, and…
-
William Stewart Halsted (1852–1920)
One of the greatest early American surgeons and one of the “big four” founders of the John Hopkins Medical School faculty, William Halsted was a curious personality, a loner and egomaniac recluse, aristocrat in his breeding, touchy and sharp tongued, an advocate of precision who had little interest in private practice and spent his life…
-
Learning anatomy in medical school
Peter H. BerczellerDordogne, France An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. On the second day of medical school, we were invited to meet the cadaver we would be working on for the next six months. I trooped up with the rest of the class into a large unheated space on the…
-
We mortals
Daniel MoranWebster, New Hampshire, United States We long forthe perfectionin these thingsof the world,Life certain inits bilateral symmetry,Generations strunglike pearls onan imagined wire.We squint at the sun.We marvel at theplaintive syllablesof songbirds.We admiretallness and clarity.Feeling thevibrations of it allbeneath our feet,We rhapsodizedistances suggestedupon moonless nightsdaring to name the ineffable.We write poems andchant to the mysteries.We…
-
Life savings
Daniel MoranWebster, New Hampshire, United States Aging is the bankwhich accepts deposits,and will not evergive them back.But it does have itstiny catalogue ofcompensations. I recall thoseancient days whenopening that accountmight earn you a newtoaster or blender,a set of steak knives.This week, afterfinding out that thethe steamy apparition,which has taken upresidence near the foul polein the…
-
Visitations
Daniel MoranWebster, New Hampshire, United States I love the world.When it does notencroach. When peopledo not knockat my door.I want to knowwhat is happening.Out therebetween commercials. I want to worship.But I findnothing sacred.So I am contentedwith bottomless thinking.About theblossom of daylight,And the complexionof the darkness. I roll it around,forcing it intothe deep cornersof my skull.…
-
Saul Farber on St. Helena
Peter BerczellerDordogne, France I went to see Saul Farber in his new office in the spring of 2000. For some forty years he had been our chief, our role model, the long-term creative force behind the department of medicine and indeed the entire medical school, the man who personified the core values of our institution.…