Tag: Charles Halsted
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The last iron lungs
Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States In the springtime of my internship year, I rotated onto the polio ward where I learned that poliomyelitis could kill by paralyzing the muscles of breathing. Eight years before, Salk had shown that injection of his vaccine of inactive virus could prevent polio about half the time. By nineteen sixty,…
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Our celiac boarder
Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States I listened with care to her history of weight loss, grain aversion, abdominal cramps, and frequent diarrhea. Her great-grandfather was an early California settler who had experienced the same symptoms for many years before he died. My patient, now in the middle years of her life, appeared normal, except for…
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Munchausen by Proxy
Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States My last patient of the morning was a teenage girl, just turned eighteen. She walked in slowly, her face in agony, apprehensive. Her mother said the pain had begun at age twelve, about when she started to menstruate, yet it never let up, periods or not. Refusing food, she began…
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Heart failure
Charles Halsted Davis California, United States By the time I completed my third medical school year, I had learned the basics of physiology and biochemistry, but had never been face-to-face with a person who depended upon my skills to survive. I had never heard a racing heart nor the sounds of gurgling lungs. I was assigned…
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Schistosomiasis
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States She was admitted to Ain Shams Hospital in Cairo after vomiting blood, having slipped into Nile mud while harvesting sugar cane eighteen months before. Surprisingly, she had not fallen into the current, but had regained her footing and survived her fall. Although all seemed well for the next year…
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Kwashiorkor
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States An eleven-month-old Egyptian infant sat wailing on a cot, his abdomen pouched out and covered by spider-like purplish veins. His tiny arms and legs were like sticks, except for his swollen ankles. He was brought in by his mother who knew that his food and care would be free,…
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The novice
Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States Living in the convent at age eighteen, the novice practiced vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. All she ate was in vain, the more she prayed, the more weight she lost, the weaker she became. I discovered her thin and frail in my clinic. Her stature was a striking feature,…
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The Korean soldier
Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States Korean War, train attack. 1950. US Army Military History Institute. Public Domain. A fifty-five-year-old Korean man arrived at the emergency room of our teaching hospital after suddenly vomiting blood during the night. Called next morning to consult in our intensive care unit, I reviewed his chart and pulled…
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Redemption
Charles H. Halsted Davis, California, USA Dr. Charles Halsted (right) and his patient who is the subject of the poem (left). Photo courtesy of Charles Halsted. Redemption I’m high on crack and going eighty, black rainy night, oncoming lights, back seat guy shouts out: “Look out!” too late. I cannot breathe, my chest’s come…