Category: History Essays
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s last illness
Armando SusmanoChicago, Illinois, United States On April 12, 1945, the country was shocked to learn their recently-elected fourth-term president was dead. Yet even after FDR’s death, Roosevelt’s personal physician, Admiral Dr. Ross McIntire wrote that “FDR’s blood pressure and heart signs have been normal.”1 The president’s medical records were kept in a safe at Bethesda…
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Looking back 175 years
Biji T. KurienOklahoma, USA It was a time when surgery was performed in the raw. Obviously a horrendous nightmare for both patient and surgeon, it was performed only in do-or-die situations. The odor of pus in various stages of decomposition pervaded hospitals. Deaths from various diseases and surgery were common. Treatment of ailments with mercury…
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Historical reflections on cause, responsibility and blame in medicine
William AlburyNew England, Armidale, Australia Debauchery and disease In the early years of British settlement in Australia the colonial authorities regarded drunkenness as one of the major evils of the day. Their preoccupation with this social problem was mirrored by the concern of the colony’s medical men with drunkenness as a cause of illness. In…
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From changelings to extraterrestrials: Depictions of autism in popular culture
William AlburyNew England, Armidale, Australia While evolution of the modern concept of autism dates from the middle of the twentieth century, evidence suggests that behaviors which are now considered autistic have occurred in the human species since its prehistoric origins (Spikins). The cause of autism is unknown, and its diagnosis can be controversial, but its…
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Illuminating the third millennium with flashes of experience from the 20th century
William H. WehrmacherMaywood, Illinois, United States As we vigorously plunge into our third millennium, we may gain some guidance by carefully examining the pathway experienced during the 20th century. During the first half of the 20th century, civilization expanded and improved explosively, progressing substantially in communication, transportation, food production, and manufacturing. Medical societies, publications, and…
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Anesthesia: Culture, technology, and the rise of the surgeon
Suzanne RagaNew Jersey, USA The introduction of new technologies such as surgical anesthesia has led to better methods of diagnosis and treatment, but it also shows that the relationship between medical theory and practice is not always a smooth one. Surprisingly, anesthesia was first used for non-medical purposes, indicating that in medicine theory does not…
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The Florentine Renaissance apothecary
Susan Brunn PuettChapel Hill, NC, USAJ. David PuettAthens, GA / Chapel Hill, NC The contemporary pharmacy conjures an image of a store replete with medicines, medical paraphernalia, and at least one professionally trained pharmacist to offer advice and fill medical prescriptions. Earlier European pharmacies (apothecaries), beginning in the Middle Ages and continuing through the Renaissance…
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Arthur Wohlmann and the Rotorua Health Spa
Stewart CameronHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Dr. Arthur Stanley Wohlmann played a pivotal role in the history of New Zealand despite his great project being a calamity. Even his discipline lost stature, yet Wohlmann himself retains a positive reputation in history. In the late 1800s, the British colony of New Zealand was promoting tourism as it…
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Pig man: Pigs in medicine from Galen to transgenic xenotransplantation
Stanley GutiontovChicago, Illinois, United States The bad rap “And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.”—Leviticus 11:7 Pig: a word variably defined as “a young domesticated swine not yet sexually mature” or “a dirty, gluttonous, or repulsive person.”1 Pork may harbor within…
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Elizabeth Fleischmann-Aschheim
Rebekah AbramovichNew York, United States Elizabeth Fleischmann-Aschheim (1865–1905) opened California’s first X-ray photography laboratory in 1896, merely one year after Roentgen’s discovery. Over the course of the next decade, this unlikely figure would become one of the most respected radiographers of those pioneering years. She was born in 1865 in El Dorado County, California, one…