Tag: Jack E. Riggs
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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,…
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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…
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Neurophobia or neuroavoidance: a student or educator issue?
Kelsey Andrews Jack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein The human brain – perhaps the most complex and interesting structure in the universe. That statement should make neuroscience a subject of attraction, not avoidance…
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Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses
Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Harriet Tubman 1822 – 1913 Slave, abolitionist, activist. Suggested to have had visions and dreams as manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Via the Library of Congress. Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions,…
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“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…
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Can behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia salvage Semmelweis?
Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Ignaz Semmelweis. 1818 – 1865. Age 47 years at death. Via Wikimedia. 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…
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Sir Victor Horsley’s fatal blind spot
Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Sir Victor Horsley. Photograph by G.C. Beresford. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) 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…