Tag: Catholic Church
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Gregor Johann Mendel, father of modern genetics (1822–1884)
Gregor Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who laid the foundation of the science of heredity and genetics. Although his contributions to science were not widely recognized during his life, his work with pea plants in the mid-19th century revolutionized our understanding of how traits are inherited across generations, thus greatly influencing medicine,…
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Martyrs and saints in art, history, and medicine
The concept of martyrdom has deep roots in religious traditions. Christian martyrs suffered and died for their faith, such as Saint Stephen, who was the first Christian martyr, as well as St. Sebastian pierced with arrows and St. Joan of Arc burned at the stake. In Islam, the term “shahid” refers to persons who died…
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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…
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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…
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St. Fabiola and her hospital
In about AD 380, a wealthy patrician matron gave money for a hospital to be built in Portus, the ancient port of Rome. This hospital was one of the first of its kind in the western part of the Roman empire, designed to provide care for the multitude of poor people living in the capital.…
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A tangled web: Stealing newborns in twentieth-century Spain
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “We were Europe’s baby supermarket and babies were stolen for sixty years.”1— Inés Madrigal Twentieth-century Spain was a politically unstable, highly divided nation. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII abdicated after the results of elections were interpreted as a plebiscite on abolishing the monarchy.2 What followed was “one weak government after another.”3 In…
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What’s inside us?: Socio-cultural themes in anatomical naming
Frazer A. TessemaChicago, Illinois, United States Anatomical terms often read as Latin or Greek gibberish whose main purpose is to be obscure trivia in the first-year medical school ritual called anatomy class. But a surprising trend emerges through the English translations of these archaic names: many parts of the human body are named not for…
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Maria Lorenza Longo and the birth of the “Incurabili” Hospital in Naples
Marco LuchettiMilano, Italy In the Middle Ages hospitals were charitable institutions that took care of those that could not afford a doctor at home, such as the poor, elderly, orphans, and single mothers. In Naples there was an urgent need for a large facility with many doctors where “incurable” people could be treated for free.…
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“Some little show of nail”: The health of Anne Boleyn
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Of all the wives of England’s King Henry VIII, the most well known is Anne Boleyn. She is the woman who, one way or another, caused the split between Henry and Catherine of Aragon – and the split between England and the Catholic Church. She has been declared a martyr,…