Tag: central nervous system
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Dr. Désiré-Magloire Bourneville: a man ahead of his time
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”– Rudolf Virchow, M.D. Désiré-Magloire Bourneville, M.D. (1840–1909), was born into a family of modest means. He earned his medical degree in 1865 in Paris. He is known today, if he is remembered at all, as the…
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Diagnosis: Neurosyphilis. Treatment: Malaria, iatrogenic
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The syphilitic man was thinking hard…about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street. Here was his problem: His brains, where the instructions to his legs originated, were being eaten alive by corkscrews.”– Kurt Vonnegut, The Breakfast of Champions Julius Wagner-Jauregg, M.D. (1857–1940) graduated…
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Pain management
Andrew YimHamden, Connecticut Once a month, Ada tells me about her pain and then I write a script for oxycodone. When Ada tires of my Spanish or I of her English, we use a phone interpreter until the delays and pauses wear us down and we switch back to our pidgin Spanglish. Some days she…