Denis Parsons Burkitt
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. 7-year-old boy with Burkitt’s lymphoma involving his right mandible (A) before treatment and (B) after treatment by Burkitt.3 Aphorisms from wise medical men and women have fallen out of fashion. Because each line is to a degree debatable, one of my favorites is: Attitudes are more important […]
Early surgery of meningocele
JMS Pearce Hull, England Figure 1. Spinal dysraphism. c. AD 200. From Goodrich, J.T.1 A variety of dysraphic states, recorded since antiquity, (Fig 1)1 are caused by the failed closure of the neural tube during the fourth week of embryonic life. They include hydrocephalus, Chiari malformations, and various types of spina bifida with meningocele […]
Arthur William Mayo-Robson
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Figure 1. Arthur William Mayo-Robson. Photogravure. Wellcome Images via Wikimedia. Public domain. Arthur William Robson (1853–1933) (Fig 1) was born the son of a chemist John Bonnington Robson, in Filey, a popular Yorkshire seaside resort.1 He later added Mayo to his surname. He is reported as attending Wesley […]
The Scriblerus and other clubs
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. John Gay, John Arbuthnot, and Thomas Parnell. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when transport was by horse and carriage, the opportunities for scholars and inventors to exchange ideas was limited. Consequently, there arose a number of small private gentlemen’s clubs, where members gathered for congenial […]
Robert James Graves MD FRS
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom He fed fevers Robert Graves Fig 1. Clinical Lectures on the Practice of Medicine In Paris in 1828 there was a remarkable epidemic of acute sensori-motor polyneuropathy known as épidémie de Paris. Described by Auguste-Francois Chomel, the cause was a mystery.1 As a neurologist, my interest in […]
Hans Christian Andersen, James Young Simpson, and ether frolics
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Hans Christian Andersen in 1869. Source: Odense City Museums via Wikimedia. In May 1847, the widely admired writer of literary fairy tales and stories Hans Christian Andersen (Fig 1) left Copenhagen on a tour of Germany and Holland and arrived in London on June 23. There […]
Caleb Hillier Parry MD FRS
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Caleb Hillier Parry Hyperthyroidism or exophthalmic goiter, often called Graves’ disease or Basedow’s disease, was first recorded by Caleb Parry (1755-1822) (Fig 1) posthumously in 1825. William Osler called the affliction “Parry’s disease.” Caleb Parry was born in Cirencester, the son of Joshua Parry, a dissenting […]
The pineal: seat of the soul
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Pineal gland The pineal for millennia had been a structure of mystery. In Ancient Egyptian culture, The Eye of Horus was a sign of prosperity and protection, often referred to as the third eye. In Ayurvedic physiology it corresponds to the sixth chakra—Ajna, located in the […]
William Wordsworth: “The blind poet”?
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Figure 1. Pickersgill’s portrait 1833 William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland, on April 7, 1770. He was the totemic father of the Lakeland poets, who extolled the relation between man and the natural world: a wedding between nature and the human mind that to him symbolized […]
What makes a polymath, a genius, or a man who knows everything?
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Einstein playing his violin. From CMUSE via Quora. Public domain. The question posed in this title is of course imponderable and ridiculous, but nevertheless fascinating. Until the Enlightenment (c. 1750–1800), an intellectual “Renaissance man” could have read most of the important books printed. He might well […]