Tag: kidney
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Harry Goldblatt and the kidney
In 1928 Dr. Harry Goldblatt applied silver clamps experimentally to the renal arteries of dogs and observed a significant and sustained rise in blood pressure. His main interest as a researcher was to find a cause for hypertension, a disease for which effective treatment was not available at the time. There had been a long-standing…
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Thomas Addis and his times
Thomas Addis, one of the most prominent students of the kidney during the first half of the twentieth century, was born in Edinburgh in 1881.1-3 Recruited by Stanford Medical School University in 1911, he spent almost his entire academic life there. After a brief interest in hemophilia and bilirubin metabolism, he switched to the study…
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Food as medicine
Keerthi GondyAnn Arbor, Michigan, United States In my family, food is the language of love. A warm meal is the way we say “I love you.” Whenever I get sick, my mother prepares a pot of spicy turmeric soup and honey lemon tea. When my brother threw a game-winning strike for his baseball team, we…
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When a medical student becomes a patient
Andrew GallagherBurlington, Vermont, United States Elliot pointed to the ultrasound monitor. “What is this?” he said slowly, trailing off. His finger was on the large, black sac occupying the entire bottom of the screen. We both said nothing, attempting to recall our anatomy. “Wait, where is your kidney?” I stared at the screen, disoriented. “I…
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Scarred for life
Shanda McCutcheonCalgary, Alberta, Canada Most mornings I wake and it does not seem like it happened at all. Still half asleep, I step under the cascading waters of a warm shower without even thinking about it. Life does not seem much different than it did a year ago, except that then I was embarking on…
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The color of organ markets
Howsikan KugathasanToronto, Ontario, Canada Nawaraj Pariyar from Nepal is promised thirty thousand dollars for “a piece of meat” that will grow back. Only later does he find out that he was duped twice. He received less than 1% of his promised money and that piece of meat was not any ordinary flesh: it was his…