Tag: James Franklin
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All too human: The mountain gorillas of Uganda
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Ugandan mountain gorilla is a member of the Hominidae family, also known as the great Apes. The extant species include: the orangutan, the eastern and western gorilla, the chimpanzee, the bonobo, and ourselves—Homo sapiens. The mountain gorilla is one of two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. The one…
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A bit of irony: Sir William Wilde and Oscar Wilde
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Portrait of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) in New York, 1882. Early in the afternoon of November 30, 1900, thirty-six hours after he had lapsed into a coma, a man named Sebastian Melmoth died at the Hotel d’Alsace in the Rue des Beaux Art. His assumed name eluded few…
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Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a member of the first wave of great Russian authors of the nineteenth century. Born in a Ukrainian Cossack village then part of the Russian Empire, he made his way to Saint Petersburg where he found his métier in the short…
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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A cautionary tale
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Mary Shelley 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. This remarkable work of fiction has inspired a wealth of popular currency in the form of numerous cinematic productions which have grossly distorted the public understanding of the work and obscured…
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Dr. Charles Drew, Philip Roth, and race
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Charles R. Drew, 1904 “My point is, if you have a course on health and whatever, then you do know Dr. Charles Drew. You’ve heard of him?” “No.” “Shame on you, Mr. Zukerman. I’ll tell you in a minute” . . . “You haven’t told me who…
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Surgery, note by note: Marin Marais’ “Tableau de l’Opération de la Taille”
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States How has medicine been depicted in music? Examples from the operatic stage come to mind: tuberculosis in Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s La Bohème; madness or delirium in the mad scene in Donizetti’s Lucia Da Lammermoor and Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene in Verdi’s Macbeth. It is harder to find…
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Eisenhower and Crohn’s Disease
James L. Franklin First Published in the Illinois Carol Fisher Chapter Newsletter of September 11, 2005. Published by the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. It is still well within the public consciousness that Dwight David Eisenhower suffered a myocardial infarction three years into his first term of office as President of the United…
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Edward Leicester Atkinson: Parasitologist, explorer, war hero
James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Edward Leicester Atkinson (1881–1929)—known to the members of the Terra Nova Expedition as “Atch”—was senior expedition surgeon of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1913. Born in the West Indies to European parents, he studied medicine at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Shortly after joining the Royal Navy, he applied for…