Tag: Fall 2018
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Nicolo Paganini—a case of mercury poisoning?
Nicolo Paganini, the greatest violin virtuoso ever, was born in the Republic of Genoa in 1782. At age five he learned to play the mandolin and at seven the violin. When his city was invaded by the French Revolutionary Army in 1796, his family fled the city but later returned, and by age eighteen, Paganini…
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Combat hospital chaplain
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Chaps, how would you like the opportunity to leave your family and your church for a year?” I asked over the phone in an almost gleeful tone. “Jack, if the question was not coming from you, I would think your question was a joke.” I had served with this…
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Alexander Borodin, the polymath who composed Prince Igor (1833–1887)
Alexander Borodin is remembered for his magnum opus, the great opera Prince Igor, which tells of the Kiev prince Igor Svyatoslavich fighting against the invading Turkic tribes known as Cumans, Kipchaks, or Polovtsians. He worked on the opera for seventeen years and left it unfinished because, in 1887, while attending a costumed ball, he slumped to…
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The treasure trove of memory
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Memory, the ability to recall at will previous events and various facts, is a precious mental faculty, an asset that underpins learning, knowledge, and experience in any field of human endeavor. In medicine its value is undeniable, though for legal as well as practical purposes, it must be supplemented with written records:…
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The Beetham Eye Institute at the Joslin Diabetes Center
Annabelle S. SlingerlandBoston, Massachusetts, United States 108 Bay State Road Spanning over three generations of leading ophthalmologists, the Beetham Eye Institute has contributed to major breakthroughs in diabetes eye care, from the first location of Dr. William P. Beetham’s ophthalmology practice at 108 Bay State Road in Boston to its current role as the ophthalmology…
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Claude Bernard, one of the greatest scientists
Claude Bernard (1813–1878), “one of the greatest of all men of science,” originated the term milieu intérieur, and furthered the concept of homeostasis. After an early high school and college education, he become an assistant in a druggist’s shop and contemplated becoming a writer, but was persuaded to study medicine and became an intern at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in…
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Illness or intoxication? Diagnosing a French clown
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, USA In his day, Thomas Couture was a renowned history painter, though his students would later surpass him in fame—the likes of Edouard Manet and John Lafarge. Born in the small French town of Senlis, his parents moved to Paris when he was a child so he could study art. He attended…
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Ibn Rushd (Averroes), medieval polymath
It is hard to know what to make of someone who has written books on philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, law, and linguistics. In our time this would have been impossible. Not so in medieval Andalusia, where Ibn Rushd, now best known under his Latinized name of Averroes, never missed a day reading or writing…
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Jean Cruveilhier – first described the lesions of multiple sclerosis
Jean Cruveilhier was born in 1791 in Limoges, France, the son of a military surgeon. He had intended to become a priest but changed his mind at the insistence of his father and became a doctor, graduating from the University of Paris in 1816. In 1823 he was appointed professor of surgery at the University of…
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Jean Marie Poiseuille: Physics and mathematics
Son of a carpenter, Jean Marie Poiseuille was born in Paris in 1799 and began his studies in physics and mathematics in 1815. When the school was disbanded for political reasons he switched to medicine and after graduating opened a practice in Paris. He became a member of the Academy of Medicine in Paris, later…