Tag: Fall 2022
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Book review: The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Classical antiquity has long been a subject of human fascination. The time period covered in this book ranges from around 1000 BCE to 650 CE. The editors have produced an encyclopedic volume of essays from scholars worldwide, resulting in a comprehensive source of information about the history of science and medicine…
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Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy: A historical note
JMS PearceHull, England Before Sergei Sergeivich Korsakoff described the psychosis that bears his name, Carl Wernicke reported a closely related and often coexistent syndrome. It is variously named Wernicke-Korsakoff encephalopathy, syndrome, or psychosis. Two more different personalities would be hard to imagine. Wernicke’s encephalopathy The crucial clinical account of Wernicke’s encephalopathy is found in the…
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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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“My dear neoplasm:” Sigmund Freud’s oral cancer
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United states Sigmund Freud circa 1921. Photo by Max Halberstadt. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. When the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, died in London early on the morning of September 23, 1939, he succumbed to what he wryly referred to as “my dear old cancer with which I have…
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Please don’t die in the hospital
Alexandra DeFeliceFalls Church, Virginia, United States I don’t like the way people die in the hospital. I don’t like the color schemes, the paleness that seeps into every empty wall, every window shade, every floor tile; every cafeteria counter, every elevator sign, every parking lot stripe—the paleness, the sterile acceptance, that appears, eventually, in every…
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Rapamycin: The “fountain of youth” from Easter Island?
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Moais at the Rano Raraku volcano quarry. Photo by Rivi, 2006, on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. “We know more about the movement of the celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” – Leonardo DaVinci In November 1964, the Canadian naval vessel HMCS Cape Scott left Halifax, Nova Scotia, to…
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Physicians and photosynthesis
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Portrait of J.B. van Helmont, 1683. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. The importance of plants in nutrition and in the environment of human and animal species needs no emphasis. How plants obtain their food and how they grow were unsolved mysteries until photosynthesis was discovered. It was generally believed…
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International adoption of Greek “orphans”
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Child refugees from Macedonia, Greece, 1948. Retouched from the original held by the State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia (DARM). Via Wikimedia. No known restrictions on publication or modification. “He’s only a pawn in their game.”1 – Bob Dylan Between 1950 and 1962, 3,200 Greek children were adopted…
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The pediatric pioneer and his finger
Ciara O’NeillDublin, Ireland One of the most intriguing statues in the Graves Hall of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in Dublin is that of Sir Henry Marsh (1790–1860). Alongside the three other memorials in the hall—to Robert Graves, William Stokes, and Dominic Corrigan—Marsh poses purposefully with his right arm stretched forward and index…
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Morning rounds
Alan Blum Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States During my internship, residency, and fellowship in the late 1970s, I kept a visual journal, filling several notebooks with patients’ stories, clinical vignettes, snippets of overheard conversations, and sketches. The two collages in this gallery, drawn in my usual medium of black ballpoint pen on small index cards,…