Month: February 2026
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Bernhard Siegfried Albinus: Anatomist and surgeon
Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, originally called Weiss, was born at Frankfurt on the Oder in 1697. There his father was professor of medicine until 1702 when he was transferred to the chair of medicine at Leiden University. Thus young Bernhard began his education in the Netherlands at the age of twelve, studying under the famous Govert…
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Agatha Christie’s first post-mortem
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Aficionados of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple could do worse than read Carla Valentine’s Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie.1 In the book’s introduction, we’re reminded that Christie, the “Queen of Crime,” remains the world’s all-time bestselling novelist, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Valentine describes Christie’s dedication to…
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Lorenz Heister, German surgeon
Lorenz Heister (or Laurentius Heister in his Latin works) was a prominent German general, eye surgeon, and professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Altdorf, Germany. Heister contributed significantly to surgical practice, particularly through his influential surgical books, which hold a place in medical literature comparable to that of Ambroise Paré. Born to…
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A second mind in scientific writing
Rao UppuBaton Rouge, Louisiana, United States Clarity in scientific writing is a rare achievement. As Margaret Thatcher would have said in a different context, it does not fall from Heaven but needs work, often a lot of it. I learned this years ago, not in a laboratory or a seminar, but in my living room,…
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“These late eclipses … portend no good to us” – Shakespeare
Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Introduction Eclipses of the sun or moon were powerful images used by William Shakespeare in ten of his plays and poems.1 Shakespeare’s characters believed that eclipses were under the control of evil forces, that eclipses could predict the fall of governments, and noted how people blamed their weaknesses and failures…
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The rise and fall of railway spine
Lenny GrantSyracuse, New York, United States By 1864, British railways were responsible for 36 deaths and 700 injuries annually.1,2 Yet the most perplexing cases were not the visibly wounded, but those passengers who walked away apparently unharmed, only to develop debilitating symptoms days or weeks later. These survivors experienced what the Lancet described as “disturbed and diminished…
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A Polish tragedy and a case without a diagnosis
On the morning of September 1, 1939, German troops attacked Poland without a declaration of war. Two weeks later, on September 17, while Poland was defending itself in the west, the Soviet Union attacked from the east. This two-pronged attack was too much for Poland to handle. On October 6, 1939, its last troops surrendered.…
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Nicolaas Fontanus, eminent Dutch physician
Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, Netherlands In the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic, freedom of thought and inquiry thrived in the seventeenth century. The University of Leyden, founded in 1575, embraced medicine and botany, and nurtured literature, poetry, and theatre. It was against this cultural backdrop that Nicolaas Fontanus (Fonteyn) worked as a physician, playwright, and poet.…