Tag: Hippocrates
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Wilder Penfield
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Wilder Penfield, Stamp Wilder Penfield was not only a great surgeon and a great scientist, he was an even greater human being. -Sir George Pickering, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) (Fig. 1) was the most gifted pioneer of Canadian neurosurgery.…
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The history and mystery of cupping
Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States Peasant Spa of Krapinske Toplice, Yugoslavia. Where ancient method of cupping using cow horns is practised. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY Maybe your chest hurts from coughing, or maybe your muscles ache. Maybe you feel sluggish and anxious, worn out, and not sure why. There is a treatment, some…
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Scurvy before James Lind
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Captain James Cook (1728-1779). Nathaniel Dance. BHC2628 Cures of disease are still relatively uncommon. Scurvy is an example of a disease well recognized but whose cause eluded doctors for centuries until an empirical curative remedy and later a specific cause were discovered. In more recent times Koch’s discovery…
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Medicinal leeches in art and literature
Martin DukeMystic, Connecticut, United States For more than two thousand years, the extraordinary blood-sucking abilities of the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) provided physicians with an unusual if not bizarre alternative to venesection, cupping, and scarification for blood-letting their patients (Figure 1). This therapeutic use of leeches was described in the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, Nicander…
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Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding and the reputation of the medical profession 1742
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States In his first published novel from 1742, Henry Fielding chronicles the journey and foibles of three principle characters: the amenable Parson Adams, the so-called beautiful wench Fanny, and her paramour Joseph Andrews—the namesake of the novel.1 Adventures and misadventures befall the young protagonist Andrews, none the least falling in love…
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Where philosophy and medicine overlap
Mariami ShanshashviliTbilisi, Georgia In Plato’s Charmides there is a remark by Socrates that is neither distinctively impressive nor remarkably original but interesting for the notably broad range of references, including the perception characteristic to ancient Greeks, the origins of the Greek medicine, and the philosophy of Empedocles, Alcmaeon, and other Pre-Socratics.1 In this passage young…
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Living with incidental cyberchondria
Theresa Danna Burbank, California, United States Bioblasts. Credit: Odra Noel. CC BY-NC Before the Internet, if I had a pain in my chest, I would assume it was gas and then burp and move on with my day. After the Internet, if I have a pain in my chest, I panic and think, “That’s…
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Life is short and Art is long: reflections on the first Hippocratic aphorism
Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece The ruins of the Asclepeion in the Greek island of Kos, the birthplace of Hippocrates. Photo courtesy of author. Some five centuries before Christ, the ancient father of medicine Hippocrates used to instruct his students that “Life is short and Art is long; opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.” (Ο…