Tag: History Essays
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King Henry III of Castile, the Suffering
Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Henry III of Castile was called “the Suffering” (in Spanish, Enrique III el Doliente) because of his ill health. He was the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon, born in 1379 in Burgos. Henry was the first person to hold the title of Prince of Asturias as heir to the…
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Touching for the King’s Evil
JMS PearceHull, England The old word scrofula is now seldom seen in medical writings. Nor are the words ague, buboe, and podagra. Despite their romantic, descriptive appeal, they have been swept aside by the jet stream of the current epidemic of maladroit, often high-tech words, phrases, acronyms, and initialisms. Scrofula, the “King’s Evil,” or “struma,”…
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The doctrine of signatures
JMS PearceHull, England Many of the ideas of scientists and physicians of the past have been proved false by subsequent advances in science. But some remain of interest in showing how our ancestors thought about diseases and how limited were their facilities to analyze and treat them. Up to the end of the sixteenth century,…
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On rival priority in publishing
JMS PearceHull, England Rival claims for priority in describing diseases or related investigations are only too common. Such vexing disputes are neither recent nor confined to medicine and science. An early example of publication rivalry is in Vergil’s Proverbiorum Libellus (Venice, 1498), often known as the Adagia, the first collection of Latin proverbs, which preceded…
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Andronicus III, malaria, and Byzantium
The decline and fall of the over one-thousand-year-old Byzantine empire constitutes an epic tragedy. Year after year, decade after decade, this once great empire became weaker and less likely to survive. In 1204, the Crusaders and Venetians conquered and plundered its capital, Constantinople, and divided the empire into four kingdoms. A newly established Latin empire…
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No fitful rest for the ordinary sailor
Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia At the Australian National Maritime Museum, our exhibits include two replica ships that played major roles in Australia’s European history. The Dutch East India Company’s Duyfken made the first recorded European landing on Australian soil in 1606. Our second replica vessel is a faithful copy of HMB Endeavour, commanded by James…
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The two doctors Bigelow from New England
Students of eighteenth-century history are familiar with the two great prime ministers of England, William Pitt the Elder and William Pitt the Younger. Medical historians, however, may be more interested in the two Boston physicians, Jacob and Henry Bigelow, also father and son, who in a way eclipsed one another by attaining a great reputation…
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Why did the chickens refuse to eat before the Roman defeat at Deprana (249 BC)?
Andrew N. WilliamsLeicester, England The Roman defeat by Carthage during the First Punic War at the naval battle of Deprana (or Drepanum, modern Trapani) is also remembered for its preceding event of the refusal of the sacred chickens onboard the Roman flagship to eat. Witnessing this unfavourable omen, the Roman commander and consul Publius Claudius…
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Of toerags and spice boxes: Sanitation at sea
Richard De GrijsSydney, Australia At 5 P.M. it blew rather fresh, but so steady that the Top Gallant sails were not taken in. The Purser went into the weather round House about this time, which is fixed in the Galley, on the Ships Bows. While he was on the Seat, a mass of wind was…