Month: October 2025
-
Hesiod: The creation of the world
Even the most educated members of our generation who have read many of the ancient Greek classics may not be familiar with Hesiod’s works, the Theogony and the Works and Days. Written at about the same time as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad (around 700 BCE), they reflect the Greek rather than the Hebrew or Mesopotamian…
-
Sewing for surgeons
Evelyn LeeWinston-Salem, North Carolina, United States It started with my mother’s simple question the summer after my freshman year of college: “Want to take a sewing class with me?” Initially, I said no. As a pre-medical student, I felt I needed to spend my summer doing something that would benefit my medical path, not a…
-
Fractured vision: The influence of early medical imaging on the Cubism movement
Jen HeVivian McAlisterLondon, Ontario, Canada The influence of art on medicine has been emphasized—it separates a physician with clinical acumen from a scholar with medical knowledge, as well as man from machine. Less frequently explored is the historic role that medicine and its innovations have played in advancing the arts. In a small provincial village…
-
The canon’s vision
Óscar Lamas FilgueiraValencia, Spain In medicine, we rely on images every day—photographs, X‑rays, scans—that reveal truths our eyes alone cannot grasp. But centuries ago, physicians and healers had no such tools. Their understanding of illness had to be drawn from observation, testimony, and sometimes, from the works of artists who captured the marks of disease…
-
Leonard Rowntree’s biography of James Parkinson
Vivian McAlisterLondon, Ontario, Canada By the time of his death in 1824, seven years after writing a monograph on the “shaking palsy,” James Parkinson was nearly forgotten.1 Even today, few people know anything about him, despite the fact that his medical eponym is well known. Over 100 years ago, this knowledge gap troubled Leonard Rowntree,…
-
From slavery to silk: Anna-Canangan of Java
Falk SteinsNiedernhausen, GermanyStephen MartinBaan Dong Bang, Thailand The oil painting Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom (Fig. 1) was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2020. Newly discovered documents supporting the lady’s almost certain identity tell a remarkable story of the late Dutch Republic. The painting shows a young woman wearing…
-
Five ethics cartoons
Mitchell BataviaNew York, NY, United States 1. Harvest Questionable organ harvesting practices were recently publicized in the July 21, 2025 HHS report “Systematic Disregard for Sanctity of Life in Organ Transport Systems.” Are organ donors actually dead at the time of organ procurement? 2. Sensitive Medical Disclosure With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the…
-
She who heals: From goddess to surgeon
Elie NajjarNottingham, United Kingdom Every incision carries two stories. One is written in anatomy. The other—in myth. In the theatre, the light hums softly above the table, and the air smells of antiseptic and electricity. Beneath the drapes, muscle and bone shimmer like hidden scripture. Surgery, I have learned, is not only science. It is…
-
A medical and cultural history of nostalgia
Martine MussiesUtrecht, The Netherlands “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” —William Faulkner Today, nostalgia is described as a warm, bittersweet emotion—a longing for a bygone era, a childhood melody, or a photograph in sepia tones. But for more than a century, nostalgia was classified as a disease. Coined by Swiss physician Johannes…
-
Alix Joffroy in Brouillet’s A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière
Lilian GleaveCork, Ireland While some students of Jean-Martin Charcot like Sigmund Freud and Joseph Babinski achieved enduring fame, the legacy of others is just as foundational. In André Brouillet’s 1887 painting A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière,1 a man stands by the window, his head supported by his hand, lit from behind. Some medical historians…