The wonderful world of vaccines
Jayant Radhakrishnan Chicago, Illinois, United States A patient with his whole body covered with smallpox lesions. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, photo by Barbara Rice. Epidemics and pandemics became an issue about 10,000 years ago when hunters and gatherers became farmers and began to live in communities. Smallpox was one of the first […]
The Valsalva maneuver
JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK Fig 1. Valsalva’s maneuver. Source It is a paradox that the discovery of the Valsalva maneuver did not relate to cardiovascular physiology but to the treatment of discharges from the ear. Valsalva’s maneuver is now used physiologically1 to test cardiac and autonomic function, and in several other diagnostic and […]
Mitochondrial DNA: a maternal gift
Marshall Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Human haplogroup tree rooted at Mitochondrial Eve. By Wapondaponda. 2009. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 DNA is arrayed on twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in human cell nuclei. It is coiled tightly around proteins called histones that together with DNA form a chromosome. The largest chromosome carries several […]
Pursuing ‘Conclusions Infinite:’ the divine inspiration of Georg Cantor
Sylvia Karasu New York, New York, United States Georg Cantor, German mathematician, 1845-1918. Cantor as an older man, date unknown. Cantor was not quite age 73 when he died of heart failure. Photo Credit: Colport/Alamy Stock Photo. Used with permission. There is a “fine line between brilliance and madness”: the distinction, for example, between […]
Leonhard Thurneysser: scholar, alchemist, and miracle doctor
Leonard Thurneysser. Via The National Library of Medicine. A highly controversial figure even in his time, Leonhard Thurneysser remains to this very day for some a revered scientist and for others a resolute quack. Born 1531 in Basel, he was the son of a goldsmith and followed in his father’s profession. He also studied with […]
How Britain rescued scientists from Nazi tyranny
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Signatories to Letter to The Times, 22 May 1933 In March 1933 while visiting Vienna, William Beveridge, Director of the London School of Economics, learned that Hitler had just decreed it illegal for “non-Aryan,” mostly Jewish people to hold posts in the Civil Service. Many lawyers, doctors, and […]
Omentum: much more than “policeman of the abdomen”
Ashok Singh Chicago, Illinois, United States Histology of activated omentum 3 days after placing a 5 cc slurry of inert polydextran particles of approx. 100 micron diameter (1 million particles) in the abdominal cavity of rats. Note the dramatic change in the size and quality of the omentum. While the native omentum is fatty […]
Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852)
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Charles Babbage. Engraving from 1871. Via the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Source It is undeniable that computer science and technology play an important part in medical investigation and research, and universally in the transmission of information. Everyone remembers Charles Babbage, (1791-1871) (Fig 1) inventor of […]
Doubled edged shield
Adil Menon Cleveland, Ohio, United States Jeryl Lynn Hilleman with her sister, Kirsten, in 1966 as a doctor gave her the mumps vaccine developed by their father. Unknown Photographer, distributed by Merck Sharp & Dohme. ca 1966. Credit: Smithsonian National Museum of American History Working my way through a biography of pioneering vaccine developer […]
Cancer and eye diseases: two birds killed with one stone, anti-VEGF antibody
Ashok Singh Chicago, IL, United States Tissue Richly Endowed with Blood Vessels Loss of blood vessels after the same tissue was treated with Anti-VEGF antibody Various cells in the human body, such as lymphocytes, monocytes, and all tissue cells release small proteins that, unlike hormones, which act at distant sites, have powerful effects on […]