Tag: Illinois
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“For their own sakes”: The Edinburgh Seven, Surgeon’s Hall Riot, and the fate of English medical women
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States “There seems to be practically no doubt now that women are and will be doctors. The only question really remaining is, how thoroughly they are to be educated . . .”—Sophia Jex-Blake, Medical Women: Two Essays1 In 1860s Great Britain, few women could practice medicine. The first was Elizabeth Blackwell.…
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Alexis Carrel: The sunshine and the shadow
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Dr. Alexis Carrel (1873-1944) was as complex as his glass perfusion pump apparatus. A brilliant research surgeon, he won the Nobel Prize in Medicine before his fortieth birthday for his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs, and later developed techniques that were predecessors…
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Dr. Aufderheide and the mummies
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Paleopathology, the study of early animal and human artifacts, offers a historical perspective of disease and injury in the distant past. It uses skeletal and mummified remains as the substrate for this analysis. The discipline is about 200 years old and initially the analysis was based on abnormalities of…
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Did Ernest Hemingway have the Celtic curse?
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Considering Ernest Hemingway’s mishaps before he died in 1961 by a self-inflicted shotgun wound, it is surprising that he lived so long. He survived two plane crashes several days apart that left him with a concussion, burns, cracked ribs and vertebrae, and ruptures of the liver, spleen, and kidneys.…
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The death of James Abram Garfield
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States 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 by his physicians with molasses, vinegar, and butter gargles; inhaled vinegar and hot water; and a throat salve…
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Tutorial for surgeons by Lawrence Peter Berra
Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Since the turn of this century, and more so over the past decade, surgeons at various stages of their careers have been dissatisfied with their work and the surgical lifestyle. The main reason for their dissatisfaction seems to be an ever-increasing burden of administrative work, leaving them with little time…
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Carl Gustav Jung
Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States In the autumn of 1913, Carl Gustav Jung was traveling alone by train through the rust and amber forest of the Swiss countryside. The thirty-eight-year-old psychiatrist had been lately troubled by strange dreams and a rising sense of tension, but the snow-capped peaks of his beloved Alps soothed him…
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Oswaldo Cruz and the eradication of infectious diseases in Brazil
Robert PerlmanChicago, Illinois, United States In 1899, an epidemic of bubonic plague caused a crisis in the Brazilian port city of Santos. Ship captains were angry that their boats had to remain in quarantine and so denied that the disease was plague. They and others argued that this new disease was not as deadly as…