Tag: History Essays
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Doctor, physician, leech, and surgeon: A history of names for medical practitioners
Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Four English words have been used for centuries to refer to medical practitioners: “doctor,” “physician,” “leech,” and “surgeon.” Each of these has unique origins. “Doctor” comes from “docere” in Latin meaning “to teach”1; thus, calling someone a “doctor” is etymologically calling them “teacher.” “Physician” comes from “physis” in Greek, meaning…
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William Heberden
JMS PearceHull, England Virtuous and faithful HEBERDEN, whose skillAttempts no task it cannot well fulfil,Gives Melancholy up to nature’s care,And sends the patient into purer air.—William Cowper in his poem “Retirement” It is difficult to avoid eulogies of the outstanding humane compassion and clinical accomplishments, which are the hallmarks of William Heberden the elder (1710–1801).…
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Headlessness and sensibility
Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States April 15, 2019, was an ill-starred day. Parisians watched with horror as huge flames broke through the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in a conflagration that threatened to reduce that precious jewel of gothic architecture to a heap of smoking rubble. A terrifying spectacle, indeed! The famed gargoyles must have…
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Clausoque stomacho: An unrecognized factor in the death of the Elder Pliny
Andrew WilliamsRobert ArnottUnited Kingdom The Elder Pliny (c. AD 23/24–79) was a naturalist and naval commander in the Roman Principate. In addition to his civic and military duties, he spent much of his time investigating, studying, and writing on nature and geography, which he published in his Naturalis Historia. In a letter from the Younger…
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Chevalier Jackson, MD: Patient safety champion
Alan Jay SchwartzPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Docents guide and educate the visitors at the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia while they view the vast array of exhibits. One exhibit in particular is valuable for its historical message. The Chevalier Jackson, MD, (1865–1958) collection displays more than 2,300 foreign objects retrieved by its…
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The tragedy of the Shah of Shahs
The story of the last Shah began with his father, Reza Khan, a military commander who seized power in 1925 and established the Pahlavi dynasty. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ascended to the throne in 1941 during World War II; the British and Soviets forced Reza Shah’s abdication because of his German sympathies. The early…
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María de las Mercedes, the Spanish Romantic queen
Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Ya Mercedes está muerta,muerta está, que yo la ví,cuatro duques la llevabanpor las calles de Madrid. Mercedes is already dead,she’s dead, I did saw her,four dukes were her carryingthrough the streets of Madrid.—Popular Spanish song María de la Mercedes de Orleans y Borbón was born in Madrid, Spain, on June 24, 1860.…
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They made their own insulin: The story of Eva and Viktor Saxl
Ellen DavisChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States Eva Saxl not only saved her own life by making insulin during World War II, but together with her husband Viktor, saved the lives of over 400 people with diabetes in war-torn Shanghai. Her life story has remained relatively obscure—I had first seen Eva’s photo in 1991 on the…
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Paolo Sarpi: Venetian hero, Roman heretic
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Though an obscure figure today, for many years Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) loomed large in the ecclesiastical, scientific, and political arenas of Europe. Macaulay praised him as his “favorite modern historian,”1 Boswell called him a genius, and Samuel Johnson considered translating him to the English-speaking world. A venerable polymath, he…
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The Turk’s Head Literary Club
Elizabeth SteinhartJMS PearceHull, England We share a fascination for the varied activities, relics, and quirky names of eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries’ gentlemen’s clubs and societies. One of us (ES) recently found the blue plaque of the Turk’s Head Literary Club above a Chinese supermarket in London’s Soho. Distinguished literati, physicians, and scientists were members of such…