Tag: Fall 2018
-
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…
-
Combat hospital chaplain
Jack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Top photo – Several members of NMCB23 visit their former “Chaps” (in blue sweatshirt) and “Doc” (author standing next to chaplain) on their way home from Iraq. Bottom photo – Chaplain (left) and author at St. Patrick’s Day “party” on grounds of US Military Hospital Kuwait in…
-
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…
-
The treasure trove of memory
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece Olive Tree with Pansies, Loutraki, 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…
-
The Beetham Eye Institute at the Joslin Diabetes Center
Annabelle S. Slingerland Boston, 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…
-
Illness or intoxication? Diagnosing a French clown
Sally Metzler Chicago, 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.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Food of the body
Katrina Genuis Vancouver, Canada Pero and Cimon Fresco, 50 to 79 CE, unknown artist, Pompeii, Casa IX. Copyright of photograph attributed to Stefano Bolognini. Two thousand years ago, the Roman writer Valerius Maximus documented a particularly strange set of events. In his collection Memorable Doings and Sayings, Maximus recounts thousands of episodes of exemplary…
-
William Alexander Hammond
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Figure 1. William Alexander Hammond In much of the nineteenth century, ”internal medicine” dominated medical practice in the United States. Specialism was widely disdained and faced hostility and scepticism,i, not least from the influential Sir William Osler: There are, in truth, no specialties in medicine, since to know…