Tag: epilepsy
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“If it be a poor man”: Medieval medical treatment for the rich and poor
Erin Connelly Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States “Urine Wheel,” Almanack, Free Library of Philadelphia – The Rosenbach, MS 1004/29, fol. 9 C (York, England, 1364), courtesy of Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis. OPenn Repository Great disparities in wealth and differences in access to healthcare between the top and bottom of society are hardly new experiences in human history.1-4 Even…
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Faith, neuroscience, and “the thorn” in Paul’s side: Abrahamic interpretations of epilepsy
Christina Perri Stony Brook, New York, United States Despite the stigma surrounding epilepsy in the Abrahamic faith traditions, some Christian art uses the boy with epilepsy as a visual metaphor for the Passion. As the boy appears to die and rise from a seizure, so too Christ dies and rises to Heaven. The experience…
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William Withering and the use of foxglove in pediatric patients
Göran Wettrell Sweden Fig. 1. Title page of William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove and Some of its Medical Uses, 1785. P. I. Nixon Medical History Library. UT Health Science Center, San Antonio. William Withering’s An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses was published in 1785.1 The book received great…
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Pushing back at perceptions of epilepsy: the interplay between medicine and literature in three 19th-century British novels
Laura Fitzpatrick New York, United States If I wished to show a student the difficulties of getting at truth from medical experience, I would give him the history of epilepsy to read. —Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1891.1 As the nineteenth century dawned, the average Briton still understood epilepsy much in the way his ancient Greek…
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Edgar Allan Poe—A tormented literary genius
Donna OlsonWhitelaw, Alberta A man attempts to hide from his sins and ultimately from himself. A murderer takes an old man’s life and hides the body under the floorboards. But he cannot silence his guilt, so he keeps on hearing the dead man’s heart in his room. This story is “The Tell-Tale Heart,” written by…
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Events of the Day – The Date I Will Never Have
Michael Wynn Salem, Oregon, USA Poet’s statement: My medical writing is informed by my fascination with how humans accept and sometimes deny reality. Events of the day Tomorrow I will tell Mr. Smith, who is compulsively tidy, that he has Parkinson’s disease,and say “epilepsy” to Mr. Alexander, the 27-year-old trucker who might have to pull…