Tag: History
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Healer of the pharaohs: History’s first woman doctor
Matthew Turner Washington, US Fragment of a queen’s face. Yellow jasper statue fragment from the Egyptian New Kingdom, c. 1390–1336 BC. Met Museum. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Some 4500 years ago, as the great pyramids rose above the desert sands of Egypt, there lived a remarkable woman. Her name was Peseshet, and she is humanity’s…
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“Between false modesty … and conceit” – Sir Roger Bannister
Jack E. Riggs David B. Watson Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Statue of Roger Bannister (left) and John Landy (right) at moment Bannister took the lead in their race on August 7, 1954. Statue by Jack Harman, 1967. Photo by Paul Joseph, 2005. Via Wikimedia. CC BY 2.0. Give me one moment in time…
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The Lewis and Clark Expedition: medical ethics in uncharted territory
David Blitzer New York, New York, United States Alvise Guariento Toronto, Ontario, Canada Robert M. Sade Charleston, South Carolina, United States Detail of “Lewis & Clark at Three Forks,” mural in lobby of Montana House of Representatives. Mural by Edgar Samuel Paxson. Via Wikimedia In 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, with the backing of…
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Improving health and saving lives: the unusual relationship of religion on sports and health
Ira D. Glick Danielle Kamis Stanford, California, United States Neil Eisenberg San Francisco, California, United States With permission of the Int Society of Sport Psychiatry Religion has always had a powerful effect on culture. As such, it is surprising that there has been scant literature on the effect of religious beliefs and teachings on…
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“Troubled in my eyes”: the risks of reading and writing
Katherine Harvey London, England, United Kingdom A medieval miniature showing St Mark reading a book and holding spectacles to his eyes. From Jean Poyer, The Tilliot Hours (c. 1500), The British Library. On January 1, 1660, a young Londoner named Samuel Pepys began to keep a diary. Over the next nine and a half…
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The talented Dr. Cotton and other quacks
Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Portrait of Henry Andrews Cotton from Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1924. Via Wikimedia. Over the centuries there has been a surfeit of talented medical quacks in all parts of the world. The word “quack,” indeed, is derived from the archaic Dutch word “quacksalver,” meaning “boaster who…
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Reconstructing memories and history in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Tonse N. K. Raju Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States García Márquez, G. One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967. Source Courtesy: Harper &Row. “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” In the opening sentence of his extraordinary…
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The death of James Abram Garfield
Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States James Abram Garfield. By Ole Peter Hansen Balling. 1881. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Public Domain. The medical treatment of some US presidents and ex-presidents has been controversial. One example is George Washington, who in 1799 at age sixty-seven suffered from an acute throat ailment that was treated…
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A look back at insulin
Shrestha Saraf Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom Sanjay Saraf Sudarshan Ramachandran Birmingham, United Kingdom Sir Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best co-discoverers of Insulin. Library and Archives Canada. Via Wikimedia. As we approach the centenary of the isolation, purification, and clinical use of insulin, it is an appropriate moment to reflect on the impact of…