Month: December 2022
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A series of messages
Fung Kam Yan Hong Kong Sign outside the author’s grandmother’s hospital ward. It was a Sunday. I sat outside the ward in my white coat, my eye protection fogging up, trying to catch my breath through the KF94 mask. My grandmother was inside, also struggling to breathe. The nurse said that only two visitors…
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Interpreting René Magritte’s The Rape
Mirjana Stojkovic-Ivkovic Belgrade, Serbia The Rape. Oil painting by René Magritte, 1934. Menil Collection, Houston, TX, via Wikiart. Fair use. When exhibited by René Magritte in Brussels in 1930, The Rape was covered with a curtain so as not to cause a scandal. It depicts a woman’s face which, instead of eyes, nose, and…
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Palo Seco: A leper colony in Panama
Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland Park, Kansas Fig 1. Indian 50 paisa stamp shows Armauer Hansen at work in his laboratory. Via Wikimedia. Copyright Post of India, licensed under the Government Open Data License. The history of leprosy goes back to antiquity and is replete with unscientific prejudices, including the belief that the disease was highly…
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The adenoid riots of 1906
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Sagittal section of nose mouth, pharynx, and larynx showing the adenoids, or pharyngeal tonsils (in green). Not to be confused with the tonsils in the back of the throat. From Grays Anatomy, 20th edition. Bartleby via Wikimedia. Public domain. On June 28, 1906, thousands of Eastern European Jewish women surrounded…
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Faith in medicine
Tyler Beauchamp Augusta, Georgia, United States Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash. When I was in college, I worked for a nursing unit in the trauma ward. One patient had been in a horrible car accident and barely survived. I visited her for the better part of two weeks before she began to improve.…
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The Joys of Motherhood: The classic Nigerian novel
Oyenike Ilaka Albany, New York Cover of The Joys of Motherhood, published in London, UK, by Allison & Busby in 1979.2 The Joys of Motherhood is a Nigerian novel written by Buchi Emecheta in 1979. Emecheta was a Nigerian woman from the Igbo tribe. Born in 1944, she spent her childhood in Lagos. At…
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Diocles of Carystus
Diocles of Carystus (probably 375–300 BC), also known as Diocles Medicus, came from the island of Euboea but is remembered as a resident of Athens. He wrote on animal anatomy, dietetics, physiology, embryology, and medical botany, but only fragments of his writings survive. His work on anatomy may have been the first of its kind…
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O Child! My Child!
Alice RanjanRedmond, Washington, USA O Child! My Child!Enter did you, into this world,incarnadine and warm.But when I held you in my arms,you did not shriek or love or scorn.Nay, you took the pathfrom mother’s bloodto River Styxin evanescent breath.How I wish you could have stayed with meto see the world beyond. You will not see…
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Wandering lonely as a cloud
Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, US Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash. I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the…
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Healer of the pharaohs: History’s first woman doctor
Matthew TurnerWashington, US Some 4500 years ago, as the great pyramids rose above the desert sands of Egypt, there lived a remarkable woman. Her name was Peseshet, and she is humanity’s first known woman physician. Peseshet was known by the title imy-r swnwt, which roughly translates to “Lady Overseer of the Lady Physicians.”1 She was…