Tag: Medical humanties
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A wider science
Ahmad Shakeri Howsikan Kugathasan Toronto, Ontario, Canada Storytelling helps healthcare workers learn about the person, not just the patient. Once Upon a Time, by George Hodan. Source Working at a Toronto harm reduction clinic helped reconcile my different points of view on drug addiction. In the classroom, I was a progressive-minded graduate student willing to…
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Becoming a doctor in Chicago (c. 1954)—The Chicago Maternity Center
Peter BerczellerEdited by Paul Berczeller An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. My group and I were assigned to the Chicago Maternity Center at the end of the obstetrics in November 1955. Despite the recent training at Michael Reese, nothing could have prepared me for the tour of duty at the…
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Medicinal leeches in art and literature
Martin DukeMystic, Connecticut, United States For more than two thousand years, the extraordinary blood-sucking abilities of the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis) provided physicians with an unusual if not bizarre alternative to venesection, cupping, and scarification for blood-letting their patients (Figure 1). This therapeutic use of leeches was described in the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, Nicander…
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“If it be a poor man”: Medieval medical treatment for the rich and poor
Erin Connelly Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States “Urine Wheel,” Almanack, Free Library of Philadelphia – The Rosenbach, MS 1004/29, fol. 9 C (York, England, 1364), courtesy of Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis. OPenn Repository Great disparities in wealth and differences in access to healthcare between the top and bottom of society are hardly new experiences in human history.1-4 Even…