Month: July 2019
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Simulation-based education and training: the reproduction of expert knowledge from military to healthcare applications
Marco Luchetti Milano, Italy Photo by Marco Luchetti Introduction Simulation can be defined as a technique or method to artificially reproduce the conditions of a phenomenon.1 Simulation-based training and education are designed to teach individuals the basic elements of a system by observing the results of actions or decisions through a feedback process generated…
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Guido Guidi, the anatomist known as Vidus Vidius
The sixteenth century Florentine anatomist and surgeon Guido Guidi is usually referred to by his Latinized name Vidus Vidius.1-4 He was born in 1509 from a fortunate union of medicine and art by having a physician as his father and the grand-daughter of the famous Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio as his mother. Her name was…
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The Gold-Headed Cane revisited
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Fig 1. Hogarth’s The Company of Undertakers or a Consultation of Physicians Over many centuries there have been several icons symbolic of medical practice. Typical is the single serpent, the Aesculapian wand — a “totem of Medicine”— seen in the constellation Ophiochus (the serpent holder). Serpents in ancient cultures…
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The good shepherd
Pallavi Tatapudy South Kortright, New York, USA “Mr. Yankees stayed silent, but his eyes all the while were yelling, ‘O, my Good Shepherd, please don’t do this to me. How could I have gotten three strikes so soon? Give me the strength to continue playing in the game of life. I beg you to…
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The Fantus clinic and the blood bank of Chicago
There was an old four-story building on the campus of Cook County Hospital that had long served as its outpatient department. It had on each floor crowded clinics where patients waited long on hard benches to be seen. It had clinics for high blood pressure, where pills were prescribed, but not necessarily taken; clinics for…
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Berengario da Carpi, pre-Vesalian anatomist (1460–1530)
Berengario da Carpi was the most important anatomist of the generation preceding the so-called Anatomical Trinity of Vesalius, Fallopio, and Eustachio. He is regarded as one of the founders of scientific anatomy, challenging the reliance on ancient texts and emphasizing the primacy of direct observation based on dissecting the human body. A prolific author, he…
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James Simpson, who made childbirth painless
A large jolly man with broad shoulders, large hands, blue eyes, and a charismatic personality, James Young Simpson was said to have been the most popular man in Edinburgh since the death of Sir Walter Scott.1 Born in 1811 at Bathgate, he was the seventh son of a village baker in a poor family housed in…
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The men who standardized temperature measurements
Einar PermanStockholm, Sweden In the world of medical science the names of people are often associated with the diseases they described (Crohn, Alzheimer, Dupuytren) or the procedures they introduced or pioneered (Heimlich, Valsalva, Romberg). Ranking high among such innovators are those who standardized temperature measurements. They remain household words, as shown by a Google search…
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The Bitter Potion by Adriaen Brouwer
It has long been the belief of the prescribing professions that medicines work better if they can impress the recipients by their efficacy. A painful injection may thus work better than a painless one, and an intramuscular injection of ascorbic acid will remind the patient of its continuing efficacy for at least one week. A…