Tag: Martine Mussies
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A medical and cultural history of nostalgia
Martine MussiesUtrecht, The Netherlands “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” —William Faulkner Today, nostalgia is described as a warm, bittersweet emotion—a longing for a bygone era, a childhood melody, or a photograph in sepia tones. But for more than a century, nostalgia was classified as a disease. Coined by Swiss physician Johannes…
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The cosmonaut’s body: Medical politics and Soviet space medicine
Martine MussiesUtrecht, The Netherlands When Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth on April 12, 1961, his body represented more than human achievement—it embodied a radical reimagining of medicine’s role in space travel.10 The Soviet space program transformed cosmonauts into living laboratories where medical science, political ideology, and technological innovation converged. This transformation reveals how the USSR weaponized…
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Psychoactive substances and mermaid sightings at sea
Martine MussiesMaastricht, Netherlands Since the earliest long-term sea voyages, from the Age of Exploration to the eighteenth century, sailors have been known to report seeing mermaids—enigmatic creatures with human-like upper bodies and fish-like tails. These accounts have long been a subject of fascination and speculation. Could these sightings have been influenced by the use of…