Category: History Essays
-
Howard A. Knox and intelligence testing on Ellis Island
Carine TabakKansas City, Kansas, United States Between 1892 to 1924, twelve million men, women, and children entered the United States through the Ellis Island Immigration Center, making it the largest health screening facility in the US at the time.1,2 At first, immigrants were inspected to identify medical conditions, but changing economic and political forces shifted…
-
From poppy to morphine and heroin
JMS PearceHull, England Among the remedies which it has pleased almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.—Thomas Sydenham, 1680 The controversial pharmaceutical company Farbenfabriken Bayer AG* had an important role in the development of morphine, heroin, and aspirin, the most effective and widely…
-
Philip the Handsome and the plague
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Philip of Habsburg was born in Bruges in 1478. He was the son of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, in a marriage that would ultimately extend control of the House of Austria over the Burgundian Netherlands. Philip was not yet four…
-
The secrecy behind JFK’s autoimmune disease
Jude TunyiColumbus, Ohio, United States Most Americans are familiar with the life and death of John F. Kennedy (JFK), but they may not know about his celiac disease and autoimmune polyglandular syndrome (APS) type 2. Neither condition has been proven by autoantibody tests, but from examining available medical records, several authorities now believe he dealt with…
-
Temporary insanity in tropical waters
Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean’s azure bed, Enamell’d fields and verdant trees: With eager haste he longs to rove In that fantastick scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And in he leaps, and down he sinks.1 It was the…
-
Santa Margherita da Cortona
Susan Brunn PuettJ. David PuettChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States From humble beginnings to years as a mistress, Margherita altered her path to become a tertiary Franciscan penitent, attending the ill and poor, founding a hospital, and devoting herself to Christ. She was in the vanguard of several other women of the late Middle Ages…
-
Saved by the spoonful: Oral rehydration therapy (ORT)
Mariam AbdulghaniMichigan, United States In the early 1970s, the Bangladesh Liberation War caused a mass exodus of refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) into West Bengal, India. Some ten million people found sanctuary in camps along the Indian-Pakistan border, where the conditions of war during the monsoon season led to a cholera outbreak. The disease…
-
The Doctors’ Trial and the Nuremberg Code
Shabrina JarrellCharleston, West Virginia, United States Tracing back to the Hippocratic Oath, which dates to around 400 BC, the principle of autonomy has been fundamental to the concept of informed consent.1,2 The Oath, a pledge historically taken by physicians, outlines several guarding principles of medical ethics. Although it did not specifically mention informed consent, it…
-
Can headless martyrs really walk? The belief in cephalophores in the Middle Ages
Andrew WodrichWashington, DC “By the temple of Mercury, [he was] beheaded with [an] axe. And anon the body of St. Denis raised himself up, and bare his head between his arms, as the angel led him two leagues … unto the place where he now resteth, by his election, and by the purveyance of God.”1…
-
King Wamba’s poisoning with cytisine
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain In AD 409, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Suevi and the Vandals (of Germanic stock) and the Alans (of Asian origin). The Visigoths came next. They had entered into an alliance with imperial Rome with the purpose of ejecting these invaders from Iberia, and after several years of warfare,…