Tag: code
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A day in the team room
Kirin SaintAnn Arbor, MI Today is Monday, May 2. The day starts before the sun has risen, before pink-lavender hues warm the earth, as two internal medicine interns slink in, yawning and bleary eyed, careful not to spill their coffee onto their well-worn scrubs. The… Read more
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A pandemic of emotions: Navigating vaccine hesitancy in a post-pandemic world
Nidhi Bhaskar Providence, Rhode Island Photo by CDC on Pexels Four years before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was registering community members at a local health fair. An elderly man in line mentioned that he would never receive a flu shot because his healthy cousin… Read more
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The Neuron Doctrine: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi
JMS PearceHull, England There can be few medical works of such importance as the study of the fine structure of the nerve cell that began in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. The two principal adventurers (Fig 1) in this field were the… Read more
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Baudelaire’s spleen
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux,Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très-vieux,Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,S’ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d’autres bêtes.Rien ne peut l’égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon.… Read more
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Studying mummies and eggs: The delights of paleopathology
Paleopathology is the study of disease by using mummified and skeletal remains, documents, early books, paintings, sculptures, and coprolites. Earlier investigators such as Esper and Cuvier focused on non-human specimens, but later ones expanded their interests to humans. They studied the ancient Egyptians and found… Read more
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Ernst von Bergmann, the surgeon who heat-sterilized surgical instruments
After Louis Pasteur showed that diseases were caused not by miasmas but by bacteria, Lord Lister pioneered antiseptic surgery by seeking to exterminate these unwelcome organisms with his carbolic acid pump. This martial approach was later followed by aseptic surgery, in which bacteria were to… Read more
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Fixed schedules and no kissing: Child rearing according to Drs. Holt and Watson
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”– Benjamin Spock, MD Child rearing “experts” first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. L. Emmett Holt, MD (1855–1924), graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880. He decided… Read more
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Steller’s Sea eagle: Who was Georg Wilhelm Steller?
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Steller’s Sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) handily outsizes the national bird of the United States, the Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Steller’s Sea eagle is the heaviest eagle in the world: females weigh from thirteen to twenty pounds and males… Read more
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Claudius Amyand (c. 1680–1740) of the first appendectomy
On the southwest corner of London’s Hyde Park once stood St. George’s Hospital, now relocated to the suburbs. It had been founded in 1733 by a group of surgeons who moved there from the Westminster Hospital. Among them was a surgeon whose Huguenot parents had… Read more
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Dear brainstem, you remind me of the Mona Lisa
Serena YueHong Kong, China Dear brainstem, You remind me of the Mona Lisa, seated firmly and comfortably atop the spinal cord. The Mona Lisa exudes royalty and class, from her posture and garments to the plump smoothness of her hands. Your elegance also enthralls me,… Read more