Year: 2023
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Scientific discoveries in dreams: Sleeping while the mind works
Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Some major scientific discoveries have been revealed in dreams during sleep. Since ancient times, Western culture has included a deep belief in the power of dreams to provide information. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 500 BC) spoke of how “even in their sleep men are at work.”1 The Roman emperor…
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The seventeenth-century plague doctor’s hazmat suit
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “There are plagues, and there are victims, and it is the duty of good men not to join forces with the plagues.”– Albert Camus, The Plague The plague (later called “the black death”) reached Europe from eastern Russia in 1346. By the time the epidemic ended in 1352, one-third of Europe’s population…
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The wizards who saved lives
Ceres OteroMexico City, Mexico Of the various peoples who inhabited prehispanic Mexico, the Aztecs were the most medically advanced.1 According to their mythological beliefs, divine beings were to be venerated for giving life to humans and for creating on Earth a place where they could fully develop and live in balance with other species.2 Because…
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Momma’s rocking chair
Frances NadelPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States January 21, 1929 Poverty lurks in every corner of the Johnson’s one-room house. Even if mother and baby survive this night, winter will continue to prey at their door. The room grows darker as the fire falters to orange ash, and I place the last log—more like a thick branch—on…
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Caring for the mentally ill: The cycle repeats itself
Robert BiggarBethesda, Maryland, United States A traveler driving through Weston, a small community in the hills of West Virginia, will find it typical of the hundreds of similar bypassed towns: pleasant but a bit run-down and sliding into poverty and abandonment. However, it has one spectacular and historic monument that lies just off the highway:…
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Medical monuments in St. John’s Church, Kolkata
Stephen MartinThailand The British architecture of Kolkata, though by no means representative of modern India, has some extraordinary beauty. One of many outstanding sites is St. John’s Church, consecrated in 1787 (Fig 1) and based on James Gibbs’ St. Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, London. In the Regency period, Michael Cheese was the…
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Relieving pain by injection
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, doctors had considerable difficulty in relieving the pain of their patients in that they could only administer medicines by mouth, enema, or suppository. The notion of injecting drugs into a vein had been stimulated by the attempts of Christopher Wren, Richard Lower, and Jean Baptiste Denys to transfuse…
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Imagined conversation: The day Mitchell and Charcot met
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Professor Charcot, allow me to introduce Mr. Thomas who has travelled to Paris from America in hope that you might assist him with a most troubling malady.” Charcot’s dutiful assistant stepped back and gave a transmitting nod. Charcot returned the gesture with an acknowledging nod. “Of course. Mr. Thomas,…
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Looking for lice in seventeenth-century art
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “As far as we can ascertain, since man has existed the louse has been his inseparable companion.”1 Bathing, and even washing the hair and the face, were not common practices in seventeenth-century Europe. Children and adults of every social class, from the “the most privileged, to the poorest teemed with lice.”2 Head…
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Dylan Thomas’s terminal illness
JMS PearceHull, England Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea.– Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”, 1937 The poet Dylan Marlais Thomas (1914–1953) was born in Cwmdonkin Drive in Swansea on 27 October 1914. He was much in awe of, but devoted to his father, an English teacher at Swansea…