Month: February 2019
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, apostle of women’s liberation
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote much about the state of women in society, publishing the still widely acclaimed short story, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892). She also wrote other essays, somewhat colored by her own life experiences. Her father had left his family when she and her brother were…
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Antonio Valsalva of the maneuver (1666–1723)
Antonio Valsalva qualified in medicine at the University of Bologna in 1687 after studying under Marcello Malpighi, one of the first people to use microscopy in medicine. Valsalva succeeded him in 1697 as professor of anatomy and later of surgery and was also surgeon to the hospital for incurables and mentally ill in Bologna. He…
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Clara Maass, yellow fever, and the early days of ethical medical testing
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States Clara Louise Maass portrait. Credit: National Museum of Health and Medicine. CC BY 2.0. Clara Maass was born on June 28, 1876, in the quiet New Jersey township of East Orange. The oldest daughter of Hedwig and Robert E. Maass, she grew up helping to raise and provide…
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Three doctor’s visits
Zara Aziz Bristol, England The Cathedral by Auguste Rodin. 1908. Musée Rodin. Photograph by Daniel Stockman on Flickr via Wikimedia. 2010. CC BY-SA 2.0. Only one week ago Yasmin had been at the same flats to see her patient, Jenny Johnson. Jenny was a lovely lady of around fifty-two, with a lilting Irish accent and…
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TB-AIDS diary
Linda Troeller New York, New York, United States The TB-AIDS Diary was created in 1987 to address issues of stigma, comparing the response to patients with tuberculosis in the 1930s with the reaction to patients with AIDS in the 1980s. Tuberculosis was used as a metaphor for the stigma surrounding contagious diseases and treated…
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William Heberden on angina pectoris, 1772
“There is a disorder of the breast marked with strong and peculiar symptoms, considerable for the kind of danger belonging to it, and not extremely rare . . . The seat of it and the sense of strangling and anxiety with which it is attended, may make it not improperly be called angina pectoris. Those…
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Dr. Uplavici’s studies on amebic dysentery
Professor Dr. Jaroslav Hlava In 1887 Professor Dr. Jaroslav Hlava (1855 –1924) of the Charles University in Prague carried out studies on the transmission of amebic dysentery by inoculating six cats with infected human stools and successfully producing dysentery in four. On completing his experiments, he published his results in a scientific paper under the title…