Month: October 2018
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Pierre Marie (1853-1940)
Pierre Marie (1853-1940) was a French neurologist and native of Paris who after finishing medical school started as an intern under the famous neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, worked through the ranks, and eventually was appointd to the chair of neurology at the Faculty of Medicine from 1917-1925. One of Marie’s early contributions was a description of acromegaly…
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Dominic Corrigan (1802–1880)
In the days when students were expected to have at least a smattering of medical history, they would have known that Corrigan’s sign and pulse were indicative of aortic regurgitation and would have guessed that Corrigan was Irish. Very few, if any, would have known about Corrigan’s cirrhosis, Corrigan’s button, or the maladie de Corrigan.1…
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Margaret Edson’s W;t: Lessons on person-centered care
Atara MessingerToronto, Ontario, Canada American playwright Margaret Edson’s 1998 play W;t has been described as “ninety minutes of suffering and death mitigated by a pelvic exam and a lecture on seventeenth-century poetry.”1 When W;t was first published, most theater companies rejected it on the grounds that its subject matter would be too difficult for audiences…
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Hearkening back to Hippocrates: rediscovering “food as medicine” in the age of quinoa and kale
Shehryar R. SheikhCleveland, Ohio, United States In my opinion, nobody would have even sought for medicine, if the same diets (διαιτήµατα) had suited both the sick and those in health.”1 – Hippocrates, from the treatise “Ancient Medicine” written around 400 BCE His edict on food is as well known as the tenets of the oath…
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Jacarandas – a dream
In the year when the Olympic Games were held in Australia, the Jacarandas were in full bloom and their blue blossoms wafted through the air. At the Olympic campus an English boy and an Australian girl fell in love. Every night they would be seen walking through the cool air holding hands. Sometimes they went…
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Paul Ehrlich: from aniline dyes to the magic bullet
George DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States To understand Paul Ehrlich, the man who developed the first effective cure for syphilis, we must dial back to 1826. In that year, a German scientist called Otto Unverdoren isolated from indigo a volatile organic substance that smelled like rotten fish. Other scientists followed him and claimed to have isolated…
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Nothing prepares you for this
Anne RooneyOak Park, Illinois, United States There are never enough beds. Seventy women lie side by side on the floor of a hospital ward intended for thirty patients. Some sleep on torn brown blankets on the cement floor. Those lucky enough to have a bed have neither sheets nor a pillow, only a wafer thin…
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Until I get my strength back
Anne L. RooneyOak Park, Illinois, USA The emaciated woman lay scrunched in a fetal position with her back to me. I stood in the doorway to her cramped bedroom. “Hello, Loretta. Can I come in?” Loretta rolled over, squinting with suspicion. “You a nurse?” I nodded. “I’m a nurse who visits people who are really…
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Addressing hunger in Tamilnadu
Dhastagir Sultan SheriffChennai, Tamil Nadu, India “There’s enough food on this planet for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed.” – Mohandas Gandhi Around 800 million people suffer from hunger globally, a number that may double by 2050. Chronic hunger creates a vicious cycle of malnutrition, stunted growth, and childhood death before the age of…
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He is not coming back
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Good evening, skipper.” Several of my senior officers were smoking an evening cigar, seated on the base of one of the large concrete barriers that surrounded our tent hospital. An evening gripe session of the ACC (Arijan Cigar Club) was in full swing. No one stood or saluted, nor…