Month: March 2019
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The gout of the Medici
Florence in the fifteenth century was one of the most important cities in Western Europe. Rich and resplendent, first in banking and in the wool trade, it even issued its own currency, the golden florin, widely used throughout Europe. For some three hundred years the city was ruled almost continuously by the Medici, at one…
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Alice Hamilton: Physician and scientist of the dangerous trades
Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It is a gritty, frozen day in winter-weary Chicago, one that does little to inspire action; perhaps least of all a frigid walk around the salty, potholed neighborhood. In a month or two a lunchtime walk would be a welcome idea; university students will gather on park benches, and…
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The smell of burning rubber: The fatal illness of George Gershwin
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, USA On the morning of Monday July 12, 1937, New Yorkers who had just suffered through five days of a heat wave that left thirty-eight people dead, awoke to read on the front page of the New York Times about the death of George Gershwin, a native son of their city.…
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William Gorgas – Life and medical legacy
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States The Panama Canal Zone in the early 1900s was described as “one of the must unhealthful places in the world.”1 Ridden with mosquitoes, the Isthmus of Panama was a hotbed of yellow fever, malaria, and pneumonia. Previous efforts to render the Isthmus healthy and habitable to outsiders had been unsuccessful.…
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Maintaining a moral compass in medicine
Jeffrey LeePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States It seemed like just another day during my third-year surgical rotation until I heard Mrs. W. cry. It was during daily rounds in the bustling ICU, and our team was squeezed around a single computer outside another patient’s room. I tried my best to pay attention to our discussion, but…