Tag: 20th century
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Recognition at last
Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States Andrew Moyer, in his Peoria laboratory, discovered the process for mass producing penicillin. USDA-ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. Public domain. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream The adage “out of sight, out of mind” appears to…
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Guaiac and “the old Guaiacum test”
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Guaiacum officinale. Photo by Forest and Kim Starr. July 27, 2007. Via Wikimedia. CC BY 3.0. “The old Guaiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain.” — A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887 So declares Mr. Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study…
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When the FBI investigated William Carlos Williams
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “And my ‘medicine’ was the thing that gained me entrance to…[the] secret garden of the self…I was permitted by my medical badge to follow the poor, defeated body onto those gulfs and grottos[sic].”1— William Carlos Williams, M.D. William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963), poet and physician, was born in Rutherford, New Jersey,…
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The illness of King George III
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Farmer George & his wife. Published by William Holland. 1786. © The Trustees of the British Museum. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The Hanoverian King George III (1738–1820) was a diligent man of wit and intelligence, a man who enhanced the reputation of the British monarchy until he…
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The Warsaw ghetto hunger study
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden A photo documenting clinical research on hunger performed by a group of Jewish doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. From Emil Apfelbaum (red.)… 1942, American Joint Distribution Committee. a photo between pages 20 and 21. Via Wikimedia. “The organism which is destroyed by prolonged hunger is like a candle…
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August Von Platen, inspiration for Death in Venice
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBandajoz, Spain Weil da, wo Schönheit waltet, Liebe waltet Because where beauty reigns, love reigns – Sonette aus Venedig. August von Platen was a German poet whose death inspired Thomas Mann to write Death in Venice. Descended from an impoverished noble family, he attended the Cadet School at Munich from ages ten to…
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Article 99: Saving money versus saving lives
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden A U.S. Marine Corps helicopter transporting wounded during “Operation Urgent Fury”, the U.S. invasion of Grenada in October 1983. photographer: TSgt. M. J. Creen, USMC. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. “There are some patients we cannot help; there are none who we cannot harm.” —Arthur Bloomfield, M.D. Article 99 is…
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Lebanon: a thumbprint in medicine
Jonathan Mina Beirut, Lebanon Fig 1. Dr. Debakey, holding the MicroMed-DeBakey VAD (ventricular assist device) with one of his heart transplant patients, David Saucier, a NASA Johnson Space Center engineer. Photo by NASA. July 29, 2013. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0. Lebanon is a country that has long developed and exported physicians and other…
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Return to Lebanon
Elie Najjar Nottingham, United Kingdom View of Lebanon from an airplane window. Photo by Elie Najjar. “Dear passengers, we will be arriving soon at Beirut International Airport.” We had indeed arrived in Lebanon, the land also called Leb-Uh-Nunh and other names before that. Mesopotamians called it Chaddum Elum or “the fields of God.”1 The…