Tag: diagnosis
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Drs. Joseph Bell, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Osler, and the method of Zadig
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “The whole of medicine is observation.” – William Osler, M.D. Paw prints. Photo by Peter Castleton on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. M. de Voltaire, the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), was an Enlightenment historian, philosopher, and writer. He opposed France’s absolute monarchy and the power of the church. He…
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A celebrated occasion
Eli Ehrenpreis Chicago, Illinois, United States Artwork by Annie Trincot. She arrives at the office early, looking as if she stepped from a portrait. Her blue eyes glimmer with tears. “My gynecologist has been treating me for hemorrhoids, but the bleeding has been getting worse. It started when I had my…
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It could be bad
Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States The doctor poked and probed and prodded and pinched and rubbed his chin and clicked his pen and rose from his stool and breathed a groan, “Something is wrong, and it could be bad, is plausibly bad, is certainly bad, but not cancer bad, but bad heart bad, and…
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Parkinson’s
Glen P. Aylward Springfield, Illinois, United States In Parkinson’s, the colors express the emotional intensity and frustration experienced by those with Parkinson’s Disease, while the inflammation and anatomic components of the disease are also depicted by the shapes. I have experienced these emotions and symptoms since my diagnosis of PD 8 years ago. The…
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A jigsaw puzzle
Julia Nguyen Phoenix, Arizona, USA (Photo credit to Geetika Gupta) Imagine yourself browsing the Entertainment section at the local store. Of all the sections you could possibly be in—Beauty, Grocery, Household, Pharmacy—here you are at the Entertainment section, looking for a jigsaw puzzle. There are so many choices: outdoor scenery or abstract? A 1,000-piece…
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Naming diseases
JMS Pearce Hull, United Kingdom I tried to unveil the stillness of existence through a counteracting murmur of words, and, above all, I confused things with their names: that is belief. — Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words Disease implies the converse of health, but even health itself is difficult to define. With the gifts…
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Joseph Bell, supreme diagnostician
The professor produced a vial filled with a bitter amber-colored liquid and asked the medical students to dip a finger in it and taste it, so he could determine how many of them had developed their powers of observation. The students grimaced but did as they were told, and the professor likewise dipped his finger…
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Quickly now, where does it hurt?
Chris Sumberg Clinton, Tennessee, United States Samuel L. Clemens, 1909, George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC In Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain chronicled his difficult apprenticeship as a steamboat captain, relating his transition from simple observer who admires the beauty of the Mississippi River to designated protector of passengers and…