Tag: code
-
Margery Kempe: Medieval visions, delusions, and hallucinations
Margery Kempe (c. 1393 – after 1438) was an English Christian mystic who dictated autobiographic notes to a scribe. Married when twenty years old, she had a postpartum psychotic episode after the birth of her first child and went through at least fourteen subsequent pregnancies. Psychotic… Read more
-
Paruresis: “Shy bladder” syndrome
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Keep calm and carry on.”– British motivational poster, 1939 Paruresis is the fear of being unable to urinate without privacy. It is more than simple shyness or embarrassment, but is rather an “intermittent idiopathic form of urinary retention.”1 In severe cases, the… Read more
-
Gently, Doctor, tell me what you see
Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States In order to emphasize the role of the arts when teaching the humanities in medicine, I have often taken medical students, residents, and doctors to art museums to develop the art of looking. During one such program for medicine residents… Read more
-
A series of messages
Fung Kam YanHong Kong It was a Sunday. I sat outside the ward in my white coat, my eye protection fogging up, trying to catch my breath through the KF94 mask. My grandmother was inside, also struggling to breathe. The nurse said that only two… Read more
-
Interpreting René Magritte’s The Rape
Mirjana Stojkovic-IvkovicBelgrade, Serbia When exhibited by René Magritte in Brussels in 1930, The Rape was covered with a curtain so as not to cause a scandal. It depicts a woman’s face which, instead of eyes, nose, and lips, has breasts, a navel, and pubic hair.… Read more
-
Palo Seco: A leper colony in Panama
Enrique Chaves-CarballoOverland Park, Kansas The history of leprosy goes back to antiquity and is replete with unscientific prejudices, including the belief that the disease was highly contagious. Therefore, lepers were ostracized from society. It was not until the nineteenth century that Armauer Hansen (1841–1912), a… Read more
-
The adenoid riots of 1906
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden On June 28, 1906, thousands of Eastern European Jewish women surrounded and attacked twelve public schools in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.1 The community where they lived was an “unbearably crowded, unhealthy, and impoverished urban neighborhood.”2 The Danish-American photographer, journalist, and… Read more
-
Faith in medicine
Tyler BeauchampAugusta, Georgia, United States When I was in college, I worked for a nursing unit in the trauma ward. One patient had been in a horrible car accident and barely survived. I visited her for the better part of two weeks before she began… Read more
-
The Joys of Motherhood: The classic Nigerian novel
Oyenike IlakaAlbany, New York The Joys of Motherhood is a Nigerian novel written by Buchi Emecheta in 1979. Emecheta was a Nigerian woman from the Igbo tribe. Born in 1944, she spent her childhood in Lagos. At sixteen, she married and immigrated to London, where… Read more
-
Diocles of Carystus
Diocles of Carystus (probably 375–300 BC), also known as Diocles Medicus, came from the island of Euboea but is remembered as a resident of Athens. He wrote on animal anatomy, dietetics, physiology, embryology, and medical botany, but only fragments of his writings survive. His work… Read more
-
O Child! My Child!
Alice RanjanRedmond, Washington, USA O Child! My Child!Enter did you, into this world,incarnadine and warm.But when I held you in my arms,you did not shriek or love or scorn.Nay, you took the pathfrom mother’s bloodto River Styxin evanescent breath.How I wish you could have stayed… Read more
-
Wandering lonely as a cloud
Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, US I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle… Read more