Tag: Italy
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Dipinto di blu: Turning blue in a Florence hospital
Giulio NicitaFlorence, Italy We were in the middle of the 1970s in Florence, Italy. We had concluded the long, tedious years of university study. Real work awaited us in Villa Monna Tessa, a large early 1900s four-story building. It housed several departments of Medicine as well as Urology. The edifice, once an elegant patrician residence,…
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Book review: My Years with the British Red Cross
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The Red Cross is known worldwide as a great humanitarian achievement. The charity was founded by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who was moved by the lack of care available to people who had been wounded in the Battle of Solferino, Italy, in 1859. His idea was to produce national societies…
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Dancing with spiders: Tarantellas and tarantism
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “There are always hysterical people undergoing extraordinary cures.”– Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man The industrial city of Taranto is in the “heel” of boot-shaped Italy. The Romans called the city Tarentum,1 and part of its historical importance comes from its name. Confusion has also arisen from that name’s overuse. A traditional folk…
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Fascist Italy: The Battle for Births
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s up to you to create a generation of soldiers and pioneers for the defense of the empire.”– Benito Mussolini, to the women of Italy1 “Women are a charming pastime…but they should never be taken seriously, for they themselves are rarely serious.”– Benito Mussolini2 Nazi Germany, Francoist Spain, and fascist Italy needed…
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Doctor in exile
Constance MarkeyChicago, Illinois, United States In August of 1935, a handcuffed Dr. Carlo Levi, (1902-1975), author of Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, (Christ Stopped at Eboli) arrived in the miserable southern Italian village of Gagliano (actually, Aliano).1 He knew why he was there. Indeed, under the fascist regime, he had already been arrested and…
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Women surgeons
Moustapha AbousamraVentura, California, United States Last spring, I spent three months in the Texas Hill Country. It is a place that at once can be beautiful and hostile. The fields of blue bonnets in full bloom are breathtaking. The cacti that abound around barbed wire fences at first glance appear ominous with their threatening thorns,…
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Syndrome K and the Fatebenefratelli Hospital
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the whole world.”— Talmud (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)1 Italy was an ally of Nazi Germany and was required to enact anti-Semitic laws.2 Beginning in September 1938, Jewish students were excluded from public schools, no new Jewish students could enter universities, and Jewish teachers…
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A circle of hip surgery around four continents
Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia My story begins in Sydney in late January 1980. A businessman in his mid-fifties (Mr. C.) had been on his way to source products in the UK. As his student son was traveling in Italy, he decided to visit him by stopping over in Rome on his way north. When the young…
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Hispanic, Latin, Latino, Latina, or Latinx?
Bernardo NgImperial County, California, United States The first time I became aware of a scientific group using the term Latinx was in 2018 during a meeting in Austin, Texas. It is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina that does away with the gender label, making it more inclusive to the growing sexual diversity of…