Tag: Howard Fischer
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Marcel Marceau saved children with silence
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The people who came back from the camps were never able to talk about it…”– Marcel Marceau, French entertainer, explaining why he acted without words Marcel Marceau (1923–2007) entertained people all over the world for sixty years as a mime. He was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France, to a Jewish family.…
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The Polish Medical School at Edinburgh University, 1941–1949
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “…an affirmation that science can be international…”– Surgeon Antoni Jurasz (1882–1961), dean of the Polish Medical School After the Nazi army invaded Poland, the remnants of the Polish military evacuated to France. When France was invaded in the summer of 1940, the Polish forces were sent to Scotland to participate in the…
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Lydia Sherman, serial poisoner
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Poisons were easily obtainable in the nineteenth century, sold for use as household cleaners, vermin control, and in agriculture. By the 1820s, Americans feared being secretly poisoned, “and considered the incidence of murder by poison to be quite high.”1 This “poison panic” was fed by prominent, well-publicized trials. The high incidence of…
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Is Betteridge’s law valid?
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “[I am]…best-known for something that was intended as a throwaway remark.”1—Ian Betteridge Ian Betteridge, a technology journalist, stated in 2009, “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word ‘no.’” He meant, of course, only yes-or-no type questions. His idea was that if the writer or publisher…
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Forty years a watchdog: Sidney Wolfe, M.D.
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Somebody has to look out for the people who are being manipulated by hospitals, doctors, insurance and drug companies.”– Sidney Wolfe, MD, 1993 Sidney Wolfe, MD, (1937–2024) was the co-founder in 1971 of the Health Research Group (HRG), a consumer and health advocacy lobbying organization. After earning his medical degree from what…
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George Orwell: Obsessed with rats
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Of all the horrors—a rat.”– George Orwell, 1984 It is said that author George Orwell (1903–1950), born Eric Blair, was “obsessed” with rats.1 Rats are mentioned in his novels, essays, diaries, and letters. As he got older, he became more rat-obsessed. He has been called “a kind of literary pied piper dancing…
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Robert Klopstock: Kafka’s fellow patient, friend, and doctor
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “If I had known then what I know now, Franz would be sitting here talking to us.”– Robert Klopstock, M.D., to Kafka scholar Angel Flores, early 1940s Franz Kafka (1883–1924) was born to a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague. He got a law degree at his father’s insistence but worked as a…
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Optography: Recorded on the retina
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.”– Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004), French photographer The discovery in 1876 that certain cells in the retina change color on exposure to light intensified the comparison of the human eye to a camera. The retina was no longer thought of as merely a membrane, but rather a screen, or…
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Ming the clam: Methodical measurement of the maturity of the Methuselah of mollusks
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Clams don’t carry birth certificates.”– Samantha Larson, National Geographic1 The maximum human lifespan is about 120 years, and research continues to find ways to increase that maximum. Knowing the maximum lifespan of other species and how they manage to achieve it may be of value. Zoologists have two strict criteria when defining…
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Loving them to death: Animal hoarding disorder
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The Lord said to Noah… ‘Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal…and one pair of every unclean animal…and also seven pairs of every kind of bird.’”– Genesis 7, in the Old Testament Between 2–6 % of people are hoarders.1 They excessively acquire unneeded items, often without space to…