Month: September 2021
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Catching your death: Infectious rain in the works of Jane Austen
Eve ElliotDublin, Ireland Fans of the Netflix romp Bridgerton or any of the Jane Austen film adaptations will likely be familiar with the important social etiquette of inquiring after someone’s health. Unlike the modern throwaway how are you, people in the English Regency era1 had a genuine interest in the health of family and friends.…
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Mental hospital memories of another era
Robert CraigBrisbane, Queensland, Australia In 1964, having obtained a place to study medicine at Cambridge University, I was given the opportunity as a medical student to work as an assistant nurse for three months in a large residential mental hospital in Suffolk, England. The pay was meager but board and lodging were included. Suffolk was…
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The talented Dr. Cotton and other quacks
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Over the centuries there has been a surfeit of talented medical quacks in all parts of the world. The word “quack,” indeed, is derived from the archaic Dutch word “quacksalver,” meaning “boaster who applies a salve.” A closely associated German word, “Quacksalber,” means “questionable salesperson.” In medical parlance it…
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Review: The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics
Arpan BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place the current COVID-19 epidemic in its rightful historical context. Famine, war, and pestilence have…
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Did Ernest Hemingway have the Celtic curse?
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Considering Ernest Hemingway’s mishaps before he died in 1961 by a self-inflicted shotgun wound, it is surprising that he lived so long. He survived two plane crashes several days apart that left him with a concussion, burns, cracked ribs and vertebrae, and ruptures of the liver, spleen, and kidneys.…
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Reconstructing memories and history in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Tonse N.K. RajuGaithersburg, Maryland, United States “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” In the opening sentence of his extraordinary masterpiece, Gabriel García Márquez distilled the recurring themes of One Hundred Years of Solitude1: the absurdity…
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The Pearl of the Orient: the persistence of Dr. Wu Lien-teh
Ku Ezriq Raif bin Ku BesryPerlis, Malaysia The work of Wu Lien-teh in controlling the 1910 Manchurian Plague has been celebrated as “a milestone in the systematic practice of epidemiological principles in disease control.” The cloth face mask he developed, “the principal means of personal protection”1 during the outbreak, was a significant contribution to the…
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A drawing created during World War I
Tilman SauerbruchBonn, Germany A photograph of a drawing by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) of the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875-1951) has been hanging in my room since my student days (Fig. 1). At the top right there is a note: “To Prof. Sauerbruch in memory of the May 1915 M. Beckmann.” Beckmann was thirty-one years old at…