Tag: Jack E. Riggs
-
Imagined conversation: The day Mitchell and Charcot met
Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Professor Charcot, allow me to introduce Mr. Thomas who has travelled to Paris from America in hope that you might assist him with a most troubling malady.” Charcot’s dutiful assistant stepped back and gave a transmitting nod. Charcot returned the gesture with an acknowledging nod. “Of course. Mr. Thomas,…
-
J. Marion Sims and the reputation-character distinction
Jack E. RiggsMatthew S. SmithMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Reputation is what men and women think of us;character is what God and angels know of us.”— Thomas Paine (likely inaccurate attribution) Few medical legacies have been more controversial than that of J. Marion Sims, the Father of American Gynecology.1-3 Sims rose from humble and obscure…
-
Neurophobia or neuroavoidance: a student or educator issue?
Kelsey AndrewsJack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”– Albert Einstein Jozefowicz introduced a new term in neurology education literature in 1994, defining “neurophobia” as “a fear of the neurosciences and clinical neurology that is due to the student’s inability…
-
Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses
Faraze A. NiaziJack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. Numbers 12:6 (NIV) “Harriet and Joan, what topic has your two fine souls so deeply engrossed?” “Moses, we were discussing recent hurtful…
-
“Gentlemen! This is no humbug.”
Summer A. NiaziJack E. RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States The words “Gentlemen! This is no humbug” is one of the most famous statements in the history of medicine.1 They were supposedly uttered by the surgeon John Collins Warren on October 16, 1846, following the first public demonstration of an operation using ether inhalation anesthesia. Yet…
-
Can behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia salvage Semmelweis?
Faraze A. NiaziJack E. RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States Remember me for the mind I had; not the mind a disease created. Few physicians have made a more significant observation than did Ignaz Semmelweis.1 In 1847 he took over two obstetric divisions at the Vienna General Hospital. In Division 1, where babies were delivered by…
-
Sir Victor Horsley’s fatal blind spot
Faraze A. NiaziJack E. RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. -Robert Oxton Bolton Sir Victor Horsley is generally regarded as the “Father of Neurosurgery.”1 He may have even been destined for greatness, as it was Queen Victoria herself…