Month: July 2023
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Other distinguished physicians
Caton, Richard (1842–1926) – English physician, discovered in 1875 the brain’s electricity by placing direct electrodes on the exposed cortexes of cats and monkeys Dietl, Józef (1804–1878) – Austro-Polish physician, Prof. at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, described the symptom of loin pain after drinking a fluid load in patients with pelviurete Luria, Salvador (1912–1991) –…
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The parallel paths of opera and medicine
In 1597 when Jacopo Peri composed Dafne, the first opera ever written, sporadic epidemics of bubonic plague were still striking his city of Florence. Venice was also suffering greatly. It had been visited by the plague twenty-two times, and some 50,000 of its people had died in 1576. The plague affected predominantly the poor in…
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The Lambs’ Tale
JMS PearceHull, England Many children and young people struggle with the plays of Shakespeare, whose language, poetic meters, and historical content are often baffling at first sight. Those who persevere and overcome these difficulties learn to love and wonder at Shakespeare’s unsurpassed language and humane tales of comedy, tragedy, and history. Many educational books and…
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Book review: Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Simon Schama, the eminent historian and broadcaster, has turned his attention to medical history. His new book, gestated and born during the COVID pandemic, is a chronicle of three pandemic diseases that have afflicted humans for centuries: smallpox, cholera, and plague. He opens the book with a quote from Pliny…
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Eating cheese as medicine
Cheese has been part of human fare since the dawn of history. Already about 7,000 to 8,000 years ago the Sumerians were making cheese from milk by curdling it with enzymes from animal stomachs to prevent it from spoiling. They used it for food, but also for medicinal purposes, for diarrhea, constipation, digestive disorders, or…
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A WWII artist remembered
Luciano FiumeCanzo, Italy When Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he prevailed on his ally Benito Mussolini to contribute soldiers to sustain his war effort. Three Italian divisions were sent initially and two more in 1942, integrated into the German army fighting in Ukraine and at one stage besieging Odessa. During…
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Your worst experience with a physician
Matthew WootenHouston, Texas, United States As a second-year medical student, I was supposed to interview patients and physicians about their experiences. Specifically, I was supposed to help find ways for physicians to develop better relationships with their patients. When trying to find patients to interview, I thought: Who would have more experience with medical care than…
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Tytus Chałubiński (1820–1889)
Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Tytus Chałubiński was a distinguished Polish physician, naturalist, botanist, educator, and philosopher. He was born in Radom, a town south of Warsaw where a high school and a hospital are named after him. From 1838 to 1840, Chałubiński studied medicine at the Medical-Surgical Academy in Vilnius (now in Lithuania, but at…
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Eugenics in Chicago, 1915: Harry Haiselden, M.D., and The Black Stork
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In the first decades of the twentieth century, the idea of eugenics took root in Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and the US. Anthropologists, geneticists, physicians, and politicians informed the public about eugenics and influenced policy and law. Eugenics, from the Greek eu-, good, and genos, birth, is an attempt to “improve”…