Tag Archives: France

Henri Parinaud—French physician, composer, and humanitarian

March 7, 2023

Jason Jo New York, New York   Henri Parinaud. Annales d’ oculistique (Paris: Dois, 1905), 320. BIU Santé Médecine, Bibliothèques d’Université Paris Cité. Via Wikimedia. Licence Ouverte / Open Licence. Henri Parinaud (c. 1844–1905), a pioneer in the fields of neurology and ophthalmology, is best remembered for his two eponymous syndromes: the Parinaud oculoglandular syndrome […]

To my colleagues in Ukraine whom I saw on TV

August 31, 2022

Barry Meisenberg Baltimore, Maryland, United States   Limestone fragments of the “Vulture Stele” now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. A stele is a stone pillar erected as a monument to some great event. This stele was created circa 2500 BC to celebrate the victory of King Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma. […]

The significant contributors to the history and development of Vietnam’s medicine sector

August 11, 2021

Tran Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam   A drawing of Master Tue Tinh. It was made when Vietnam still used ancient Vietnamese with characters similar to Chinese. Unknown original. Source Physicians have long held a high position in Vietnamese society. Among many who have improved the health of their local communities, five […]

Hispanic, Latin, Latino, Latina, or Latinx?

July 13, 2021

Bernardo Ng Imperial County, California, United States   Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month Celebration 2019. Photo by CSUF Photos. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The first time I became aware of a scientific group using the term Latinx was in 2018 during a meeting in Austin, Texas. It is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina that […]

St. Godric and the lost leper hospital of Darlington

July 9, 2021

Stephen Martin UK   Fig 1. Godric praying to the Virgin, c 1400. PD-US, accessed: wikimedia, original: ©British Library Board, Cotton, Faustina, VI, ii 16 V. In the late 1100s, the English monk Reginald of Durham wrote an account in Latin of the hermit St. Godric, whom he knew personally.1 Reginald attributed over two hundred […]

Early lessons

May 27, 2021

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Virginia Emergency Room, image from “Historic VCU: A VCU Images Special Collection” VCU Libraries from Richmond, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Finally, it was my first day in a US hospital after studying medicine in Europe for five and a half years. A medical education at the […]

Book review: The Origins of Modern Science

May 12, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of The Origins of Modern Science: From Antiquity to the Scientific Revolution by Ofer Gal. Science and medicine have long been intertwined: many advances in the field of medicine would not have been possible without prior knowledge of fundamental science. It is not surprising, therefore, that a […]

Hector Berlioz: from medical school to music conservatory

April 21, 2021

Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States   Portrait of Hector Berlioz. Gustave Courbet. 1850. Musée d’Orsay. Via Wikimedia Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) was born in La Côte-Saint-André, France. His father was a well-known physician in his hometown in the French Alps and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. At the age of eighteen, Hector […]

American ginseng as an herbal emissary influencing Qing-American trade relations

March 19, 2021

Richard Zhang Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Panax quinquefolium, as featured in a book by physician-botanist Jacob Bigelow, late 1810s. Public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. On February 22, 1784, the Empress of China set sail from New York Harbor.1 Destined for the eponymous country, the American ship carried thirty tons of a wild root—ginseng. […]

Book review: The Origins of AIDS

March 15, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of The Origins of AIDS by Jacques Pépin. This is a revised and updated edition of a book first published in 2011. This edition is timely, as this year marks the fortieth anniversary of the first descriptions of the disease today known as AIDS. In 1981 Gottlieb […]