Category: History Essays
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The medical history of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the fortieth president of the United States and the fifth to be shot at by a would-be assassin. On March 30, 1981, a deranged young man, John Hinckley Jr., fired six bullets at him outside a hotel in Washington, D.C. One bullet struck his chest, ricocheted off his left seventh rib, and…
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“A conspicuous place in the annals of murder”: The anatomy murders of Burke and Hare
Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States In 1828 Scotland, two men committed a series of crimes that would earn them, as a contemporary newspaper described, “a conspicuous place in the annals of murder.”1 To both contemporaries and modern audiences, the gruesome story of Burke and Hare is “an endless source of morbid fascination.”1 For centuries, Western…
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The Doctors’ Riot of 1788
Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States In the wake of the American Revolution, slavery remained a key part of the United States’ economy. Even the northern states were not exempt; in the waning years of the eighteenth century, slaves made up nearly 20% of the population of New York City alone.1 As a 2011 Lancet article…
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Mercury poisoning and the death of John Wilkes Booth
Matthew D. TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United StatesJason SappJoint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, United States Introduction On April 26, 1865, twenty-six soldiers of the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment surrounded a barn on the Garrett farm in Virginia. Hiding within the barn were two refugees, one of them the most wanted man in the United States, and the…
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The bizarre history of the bezoar
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “As for the bezoar [we removed] …we have restricted ourselves from employing its therapeutic power in the practice of medicine.”1– John Moffat, M.D. A bezoar is a compact mass of material that may be found in the digestive tract of mammals, including humans. Bezoars in humans may cause problems. Those found in…
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Medicine and religion in ancient Egypt
Gigi TaymourLondon, England Through the stability of ancient Egyptian society, governmental system, and organized economy, medical knowledge advanced rapidly.1 The Egyptians successfully integrated complex healthcare practices with religion, botanical cures, and surgical procedures. Although some scholars have argued that religious beliefs may have hindered the development of medicine, the documented literature such as the Ebers…
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Marfan syndrome and Abraham Lincoln
Umut AkovaAtlanta, Georgia, United States Marfan syndrome is a rare, inherited genetic disorder that affects the body’s connective tissues. People with Marfan syndrome often have distinctive physical features such as tall stature, long limbs, joint hypermobility, and a narrow face. The condition is primarily caused by mutations in the FBN1 gene, which is located on…
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The mysterious death of Margaret, child queen of Scotland
Juliana MenegakisSt. Andrews, Scotland Upon the death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286, the throne of Scotland passed to his four-year-old granddaughter Margaret. Only four years later, the young queen died, aged just seven. However, the exact details of her death are uncertain. When exactly did she die? And was her death a sudden…
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Biblical leprosy: A dermatologist’s perspective
Harry Goldin Skokie, Illinois, United States “‘Unclean! Unclean!’ … ” Underwood and Underwood Publishers, 1896. Crop of photo by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UofT on Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0. The descriptions of “leprosy” in chapter 13 of the Book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible are complex and difficult to understand. This confusion…
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Hanaoka Seishū, inventor of an early general anesthetic
Kingston Bridges London, United Kingdom Hanaoka performing the first operation with tsūsensan. University Hospital Medical Information Network Center. Since time immemorial, humans have sought to alleviate illness and suffering through surgical interventions. Amputations with improvised tools took place in the Upper Paleolithic period over 30,000 years ago, and skeletal evidence of trephining has been…