Tag: Italy
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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…
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Quincy—A crusading doctor played by a crusading actor
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden The television series Quincy, or Quincy, M.E. [Medical examiner], aired between 1976 and 1983 in the US. One hundred forty-six episodes of this program were televised. Quincy was originally conceived as a crime drama, with the police helped by the ideas and findings of Dr. Quincy (no first name), a forensic pathologist…
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The history of quarantine and contact tracing as surveillance strategies
Mariella ScerriVictor GrechMalta Quarantine, from the Italian quaranta, meaning forty, is a centuries-old public health measure instituted to control the spread of infectious diseases by mandating isolation, sanitary cordons, and other mitigation measures.1 Though essential in preventing the spread of disease, such measures have often been controversial, as they raised “political, ethical, and socioeconomic issues…
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Giorgio Baglivi and The Practice of Physick
James MarcumWaco, Texas, United States “To form a right Judgment of Diseases, is a very difficult Matter.” With this opening sentence, Giorgio Baglivi (Figure 1) began his 1696 treatise De Praxi Medica, which was translated in 1704 as The Practice of Physick (Figure 2).1 Throughout the treatise, he frames the problems plaguing late seventeenth and…
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A brief history of kidney transplantation
Laura Carreras-PlanellaMarcella FranquesaRicardo LauzuricaFrancesc E. BorràsBarcelona, Spain We may think of renal transplantation as routine therapy today, but this procedure has taken centuries to develop and is marked by important events in the history of science. An ancient description of the kidneys is found in the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, dated to 1550 BC and discovered…