Tag: Dermatology
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Biblical leprosy: A dermatologist’s perspective
Harry Goldin Skokie, Illinois, United States “‘Unclean! Unclean!’ … ” Underwood and Underwood Publishers, 1896. Crop of photo by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, UofT on Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0. The descriptions of “leprosy” in chapter 13 of the Book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible are complex and difficult to understand. This confusion…
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Dead Sea: health claims and tourist delights
After the death of Alexander the Great, the land now comprising Israel and Jordan fell under the successive domination of the Seleucid kings, Rome, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, and the British empire. Lying in almost the center of that area is the Dead Sea. It is actually not a sea but rather a salt-water lake, and…
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Another look at the medical problems of Jean-Paul Marat: searching for a unitary diagnosis
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden L’Assassinat de Marat / Charlotte Corday. Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry. 1860. Musée d’Arts de Nantes. Via Wikimedia. Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was a practicing physician, scientist, and a leader of the French Revolution. He also suffered from a chronic, intractable skin condition, which troubled the last five years of his life. A tormenting…
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Phillipe Gaucher (1854-1918)
Philippe Charles Ernest Gaucher. Via Wikimedia. In the days when syphilis was rampant in Europe and diagnostic modalities few, many unrelated medical conditions were erroneously attributed to it. There was, for example, the distinguished professor of syphilology and dermatology at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine and the University of Paris, who “aggressively promoted” the idea that poliomyelitis…
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An image in time: medical photography in dermatology
Andrea MarksUnited Kingdom Medical imaging has always been an important and valuable tool in the practice of medicine.14 Before the introduction of photography in the late nineteenth century, medical professionals used wax models, illustrations, and paintings to document clinical conditions and procedures.7,14 Photography has been used in the medical setting for over a century,1 and…