Tag: Massachusetts
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Maxwell Finland: expert in infectious diseases
Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut, United States Maxwell Finland in the senior yearbook from the Harvard Class Album 1922. (Credit: HUD 322.04 page 181. Harvard University Archives.) Maxwell Finland (1902-1987) was a remarkable physician, teacher, and researcher in infectious diseases. His life began during the turmoil of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and ended in…
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The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Carol-Ann Farkas Boston, Massachusetts, United States The Goldfinch By Carel Fabritius. 1654. Mauritshuis. Public Domain. Wikimedia. I. Diagnostically speaking, the “nervous” or “mental” breakdown is not a thing. The term has never been formally used in psychology, which has long preferred specific, definable categorizations of symptoms and conditions: stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma.1 And yet…
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The death of Zachary Taylor: The first presidential assassination or a bad bowl of cherries?
Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States Figure 1: Senator Foote pulling a revolver on Senator Benton on Senate Floor. The quote above Benson’s head reads, “Get out of the way and let the assassin fire! Let the scoundrel use his weapon! I have no arm’s(sic) I didn’t come here to assassinate.” Library of…
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The Schoolhouse Lab
Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States “Black measles” was a common name for spotted fever, which regularly killed people in the western United States. Symptoms included a spotty rash on the extremities, fever, chills, headache, and photophobia. No one knew what caused it. The first recorded case in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley was in 1873.1 Twenty-three…
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The African Savannah
Steve Ablon Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Photo by Steve Ablon Forty years ago, my father wore his safari hat, squinted through binoculars, told us those giraffes, the dark ones, are older, and soon will not be able to outrun lions or will break a leg, be eaten. That is the cycle of life he…
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Heterozygous advantage: How one deadly disease prevents another
Neal KrishnaBoston, Massachusetts, United States Of all the genetic disorders to which man is known to be a victim, there is no other that presents an assemblage of problems and challenges quite comparable to sickle cell anemia. Because of its ubiquity, chronicity, and resistance to treatment, sickle cell anemia remains a malady whose mitigation and…
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What it’s about
Wesley Chou Boston, Massachusetts At coffee-flecked booths And down corridors, wending A way through the staccato chatter, We guzzle down the details: “empty waiting room” by Julep67. 2006. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Oh let me tell you, One fisherman to another, Of fingers turned tassel by a firecracker, Soiled plastic and muffled screams leaking Out a…
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The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part III
Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche. Photo by Gustav Schultze. 1882. Taken from Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann, Fourth Edition. Public Domain. A cure for loneliness In the video “What is Literature For?” produced by The School of Life, author Alain de Botton claims that books are a cure for loneliness.…
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The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part II
Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States Frontispiece to the 6th edition of Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (published under the pseudonym Democritus Junior). 1868. From the Internet Archive and the Public Domain Review. The placebo effect When first exploring literature’s psychological effects on the reader, it is important to consider whether a book…