Tag: Colon cancer
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Guaiac and “the old Guaiacum test”
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States “The old Guaiacum test was very clumsy and uncertain.”— A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1887 So declares Mr. Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet, first published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887, and then as a book in July 1888 published by Ward,…
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Uncertainty and clinical truths
Anjan BanerjeeCambridgeshire, United Kingdom “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability” (William Osler) Monday 15:35 pm The ninety-eight year old patient with piercing blue eyes and a quizzical expression sat in her wheelchair in the colorectal clinic. We sat facing each other in a bare, windowless room, knees almost touching. She…
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Cheeseburgers and cursewords
Sara Gody Jackson Bybee Salt Lake City, Utah I hardly recognized him. The photograph in his hospital record taken two years prior boasts a thirty-seven-year-old man with a full face, short reddish hair and a twinkle in his eyes. Now he reclines passively in bed, his face sallow, cheek bones protruding like the pointy…