Tag: Hektorama
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Para site
Sophia WilsonNew Zealand they burrow, gnaw and niggleI scratch, claw and wrigglethey linger, lurk and loomI pick, and probe and groomthey crawl, revolt, returnI rip and pull and squirmthey bite, prick, sting and tunnel under skinI battle, bawl, hand-wringthey glide though veins, gnaw holes in heartprotrude as lumps and tear apart. they nip with pincersI…
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Gordon Morgan Holmes MD., FRS.
JMS PearceHull, England “Beneath the exterior of a martinetthere was an Irish heart of gold” Wilder Penfield Gordon Holmes (1876-1965) was born in Castlebellingham, Ireland. He was named after his father, a landowner, descended from a Yorkshire family that had settled in King’s County (County Offaly) in the mid-seventeenth century. In a golden era of…
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The illness of Tom Wedgwood: A tragic episode in a family saga
John Hayman Melbourne, Australia Tom Wedgwood (1771-1805) was born into the famous pottery dynasty as the third surviving son of Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) and his wife Sarah (1734-1815). Sarah was also a Wedgwood, a distant cousin of her husband.1 Tom was ill for all of his short life, a life recorded by his biographer, Richard…
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The Plague of Ashdod, by Nicholas Poussin
The Plague of Ashdod, Poussin’s famous painting of 1630, is based on the Old Testament account of an epidemic affecting the Philistines after they had captured the Ark of the Covenant from the Israelites and moved it to their coastal city of Ashdod. According to Samuel 1:5, the Lord first destroyed the statue of their…
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Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck was born into a family of Junkers in Brandenburg in 1815. Becoming prime minister of Prussia at the age of forty-seven in 1862, he remained in power for twenty-eight years. During this time he united Germany under Prussian hegemony; defeated Denmark, Austria, and France in three wars; annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Alsace, and Lorraine…
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Madness and gender in Gregory Doran’s Hamlet
Sarah BahrIndianapolis, Indiana, United States In director Gregory Doran’s 2009 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, David Tennant’s Hamlet becomes a bawdy lunatic who consciously or unconsciously uncouples himself from reality. The intentionality of Hamlet’s madness is more muddled than in Shakespeare’s text because of the confrontational quality Tennant lends to the prince’s mental angst. Tennant…
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“If it be a poor man”: Medieval medical treatment for the rich and poor
Erin Connelly Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States “Urine Wheel,” Almanack, Free Library of Philadelphia – The Rosenbach, MS 1004/29, fol. 9 C (York, England, 1364), courtesy of Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis. OPenn Repository Great disparities in wealth and differences in access to healthcare between the top and bottom of society are hardly new experiences in human history.1-4 Even…
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Bones and Bots: what classic science fiction tells us about contemporary medicine
Greg BeattyBellingham, Washington, United States In the original Star Trek, the real Star Trek, there were several major recurring characters. There was of course James Tiberius Kirk, Captain of the Enterprise, the ever conflicted Vulcan first officer Mr. Spock, the charmingly clichéd Scottish engineer “Scotty,” and of course the chief medical officer Dr. Leonard “Bones”…