Year: 2022
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Luigi Rolando
JMS PearceHull, England Likened to the small intestines, in ancient times the gyri of the brain were named “coils” by Greek physicians and anatomists. Vesalius in the sixteenth century amplified the description in the celebrated De humani corporis fabrica. Thomas Willis in Cerebri anatome (1664) radically changed the accepted view that cognitive and somatic functions…
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Book review: A History of Women in Medicine and Medical Research
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Research and writing on women’s contributions to science and medicine are needed and welcome. Books about science and medical advances have often concentrated primarily on men’s achievements and have a distinctly Western bias. This new book on the history of women in medicine and medical research is a superb addition to…
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Romantique
Jonathan B. FerriniLa Jolla, California, United States “I live in a world of spring showers of acrylic and watercolor droplets painting the score on the pavement of a Chopin nocturne.” These were the last words my brother Marshal spoke to me ten years ago at our dad’s funeral. I welcomed the opportunity to see him…
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Operation Pedro Pan: Saving Cuban children from communism
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In 1959, lawyer and revolutionary Fidel Castro (1926–2016) overthrew the corrupt, US-supported government of Fulgencio Batista, the dictator of Cuba. Castro promised reforms and democracy. However, early in his regime, members of the Batista government were executed after pro forma trials. Businesses were nationalized in 1960, and the following year, all private…
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Using art to educate about breast cancer
Viney KirpalIndia The World Health Organization Global Cancer Observatory states that in India in 2020, more than 178,361 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in women.1 Some of these cases, of which 90,408 were fatal, could have been diagnosed and treated earlier, but a lack of awareness persists throughout the country. Comparatively, in the…
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Dr. Marilyn Gaston’s lifesaving research
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “[W]e can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often-neglected accomplishments of [B]lack Americans in every endeavor throughout our history.”1– President Gerald Ford, 1976 Marilyn Gaston, MD (b. 1939), grew up in a poor family, with both parents working at low-wage jobs. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in…
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It’s not the patient who hit you…
JP SutherlandNorth America Although Christopher’s appearance was extraordinary, there was no sign (not even in retrospect) that he would kick me in the groin within the next hour. He was naked, and standing motionless with his arms held out perpendicularly from his sides. If anyone tried to cover him with a blanket then he would…
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James Joyce’s Ulysses and the human experience
Mateja LekicPhoenix, Arizona, United States Ulysses is a novel that explores universal themes of the human experience. A modern retelling of the Odyssey, it follows Leopold Bloom during his encounters on the streets of Dublin in a single day. Each episode loosely follows in Odysseus’s footsteps. As Bloom travels through Dublin, he encounters the scent…
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Huntington’s chorea
JMS PearceHull, England In the history of medicine, few writers can have received a finer accolade than that bestowed by William Osler on George Huntington. Osler commented: “In the whole range of descriptive nosology there is not to my knowledge, an instance in which a disease has been so accurately and fully delineated in so…