Tag Archives: Darwin

When Darwin was wrong

September 3, 2021

John Hayman Victoria, Australia   Fig. 1. The Parallel Roads of Glen Roy, as would have been seen by Darwin. (Photo by Bev Biggs.) Charles Darwin (1809-1802) is rightly famous, not for the discovery of evolution but for revealing the mechanism by which it may occur, natural selection. He not only formulated this idea, but […]

A moment of philosophy

August 11, 2021

Nishitha Bujala Hyderabad, Telangana, India   Photo by cottonbro from Pexels I seem to be in a constant state of anxiety these days. With my one-year plans and goals seemingly disrupted by the pandemic, my medical licensing exams postponed, my ability to focus shrunk to the size of a peanut, my interest to study equaling […]

John Hughlings Jackson

January 22, 2021

JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. John Hughlings Jackson. Selected writings of John Hughlings Jackson: frontispiece. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). “. . . A man among the little band of whom are Aristotle and Newton and Darwin.”  -Gustave I. Schorstein (1863-1906), physician at the London Hospital   The magnitude […]

All too human: The mountain gorillas of Uganda

June 29, 2020

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Fig 1. Adult female mountain gorilla   The Ugandan mountain gorilla is a member of the Hominidae family, also known as the great Apes. The extant species include: the orangutan, the eastern and western gorilla, the chimpanzee, the bonobo, and ourselves—Homo sapiens. The mountain gorilla is one […]

The other Charles Darwin (1758-1778)

February 18, 2020

JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Erasmus Darwin and William Withering. “Precursoritis” is the bane of historiography.” – Stephen Jay Gould   One of the best-known and important discoveries in the practice of medicine was the introduction of digitalis by William Withering (Fig 1). It was the subject of controversy that involved […]