Month: January 2023
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From silks to science: The history of hematoxylin and eosin staining
Vidhi NaikAberdeen, Scotland Introduction Hematoxylin and eosin, dyes used to stain tissue samples, collectively known as H&E, form the benchmark for histological stains. These dyes possess a profound and alluring history, which includes stories of the fabric industry, pirates, fine art, and eventually histology. The development of hematoxylin The origins of hematoxylin can be traced…
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Blood and hate: The anti-Semitic origin of the fabled first transfusion
Matthew TurnerMcChord, Washington, United States Introduction It is a story often repeated in medical textbooks: in 1492, Innocent VIII lay dying. His physician attempted the first recorded blood transfusion, transfusing the blood of three children into the deteriorating Pope. The treatment failed, and Innocent’s uneasy reign over Rome ended shortly afterwards. The story, set nearly…
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Menstrual health in early Indian medical tradition
Benjamin DarkwaEdmonton, Canada Introduction As one of the oldest medical traditions, Ayurveda has existed for about two thousand years.1 Caraka and Susruta are the most famous medical compendiums of Ayurveda. These classical texts associate diseases with the imbalance of three dosas (humors): vata (wind), kapha (phlegm), and pitta (bile). The three dosa theory, illustrated in…
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Saying goodbye
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Her head is bald, her face pale. Only a couple of weeks have passed since her latest cycle of chemotherapy, which imposed its ravages but offered no benefit. The disease is marching relentlessly ahead, the survival horizon drawing closer each day. She is alive only with the help of strong medications that…
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Of lice and men
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “By consistently tormenting them / with reminders of the lice in their children’s hair, the / School Physician first brought their hatred down on him / But by this familiarity they grew used to him, and, so / at last, they took him for their friend and adviser.”– “The Poor,” William Carlos…
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Clinical signs in images of King Henry VII
Stephen MartinDurham, United Kingdom Westminster Abbey has a superb effigy that was made for the funeral of King Henry VII. (Fig 1) Henry, born in 1457 and deceased in 1509, was famous for defeating Richard III in the Wars of the Roses. The effigy has such breathtaking detail that it was probably made from a…
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Clausewitz’s death: Cholera and melancholy
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain “Sollte mich ein früher Tod in dieser Arbeit unterbrechen”(“If an early death should terminate my work”)— Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the psychological and political aspects of waging war. He is remembered chiefly for his work…
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Some Dickensian diagnoses
JMS PearceHull, England What a gain it would have been to physic if one so keen to observe and facile to describe had devoted his powers to the medical art.– British Medical Journal obituary, 1870 A huge biographical literature relates the turbulent life of Charles Dickens (1812–1870) (Fig 1) from its humble, poverty-ridden beginnings to…