The snake, the staff, and the healer
Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel The Rod of Asclepius, graphite on paper, by Daniel Wein, 2021. Introduction In some ancient cultures, especially around the Near East, the snake was involved in healing. Today this seems counterintuitive. There are as many as 130,000 deaths from snake bites worldwide each year and three times that number […]
The influence of the text De Arte Gymnastica on the resurgence of medical gymnastics in Renaissance Italy: Girolamo Mercuriale (1530-1606)
Philippe Campillo Daniel Caballero Lille, France Figure 1. Hieronymous Mercurialis (1530–1606). Line engraving by Theodor de Bry, 1528-1598. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) The physicians of ancient Greece were aware that muscular exercise was a source of health and strength, as well as achieving corporal beauty through a balanced relationship between different parts of […]
Burnout: Are we looking at it through the wrong lens?
Elizabeth Cerceo Camden, New Jersey, United States The Exhausted Ragpicker. Jean François Raffaëlli. 1880. The Art Institute of Chicago. The epidemic of burnout seems to afflict ever more populations as it insidiously creeps into the workplace of everyone from nurses to teachers, from medical students to seasoned clinicians, from Amazon to Apple. As physicians, […]
Latin and medicine
Noah DeLone Miami, Florida, United States Photography by Celeste RC Language is the cornerstone of our ability to communicate as humans and underlies the prose of our medical discourse. The words we select can be indicative of our background, training, and intentions. It should come as no surprise that a robust knowledge of one’s […]
A changing view of death
Amber Mills Anthea Gellie Michele Levinson Malvern, Australia Roman mosaic depicting fight between two gladiators, 4th century National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, Spain We sit at a phase in human development when life expectancy is greater than ever before. In classical Rome life expectancy was a mere 28 years for an adult, in Medieval Britain it […]