Tag: Fall 2013
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Feto-nosophobia
Bryan SiskSt. Louis, Missouri, United States Never underestimate a medical student’s capacity for worry. Whether anxious about an upcoming exam or beginning a new rotation with a curmudgeonly attending, no one makes it through medical school without having to battle these existential butterflies. I found this to be especially true while I was on a…
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Doctors as angels and devils
Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, United States The Physician as god, angel, man, and devil Four colored engravings, 1609 Johann Galle after Egbert van Panderen Collection of the Wellcome Institute, London These four colored engravings from 1609 by Johann Gelle after the design of Egbert van Panderen tell the waxing and waning reputation of the…
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Giulio Clovio: Miniaturist and manuscript illuminator
For much of his career, Giorgio Giulio Clovio, the greatest miniaturist and manuscript illuminator of his time, was pursued by ill luck. Born in Croatia in 1498 and first working in Venice, he went to seek his fortune in the service of the King of Hungary. But unfortunately the King was defeated and killed by…
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The two hemispheres of medicine
Jeffrey LevineNew York, New York, United States I stared at the blank surface of my drawing pad, confused and frozen in fear. It was slightly larger than a sheet of typing paper but looked like it spread from horizon to horizon. The naked model sat leisurely, unashamed, her eyes fixed on a distant, imaginary cloud…
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Géricault’s art of insanity
Caitlin Meyer Scotland “Now I am disoriented and confused. I try in vain to find support; nothing seems solid, everything escapes me, deceives me. Our earthly hopes and desires are only vain fancies, our successes mere mirages that we try to grasp,” scrawled Théodore Géricault in a letter to his friend Dedreux-Dorcy in 1810.1…
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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…
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The American Civil War as a biological phenomenon: Did Salmonella or Sherman win the war for the North?
Michael Brown Chicago, Illinois, United States Reexamining Civil War deaths Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital – Washington, DC, 1865 A demographic historian, J. David Hacker, recently discovered an unfortunate truth; using newly digitized data from the 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses, he constructed new estimates of Northern and Southern Civil…