Walter E. Dandy, one of the founders of neurosurgery
Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Johns Hopkins, where Dandy studied. Photo by Lizardraley99, 2012. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 Three pioneers established the discipline of neurosurgery. They were the British surgeon Victor Horsley and the Americans Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy. Both Americans were surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dandy (1886-1946) […]
Life lessons from death
Pedro T. Lima Recife, Brazil Death and Life, 1918. Gustav Klimt. Leopold Museum, Vienna, Austria. Via Wikimedia “How would you like to die?” the professor asked without breaking eye contact. I averted my gaze to ponder the question, but no answers came to mind. “I’ve never thought about it. I guess that I would […]
Harvey Cushing and pituitary diseases
JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK Fig 1. Harvey Cushing. Cropped from: Harvey Williams Cushing and Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. Photograph, 1938. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain. Of the many aspects and contributions of Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939) (Fig 1), this sketch concentrates on his identification of a basophilic tumor of the pituitary with adrenal hyperfunction that […]
Harvey Cushing: Surgeon, Author, Soldier, Historian 1869-1939
John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States Harvey Williams Cushing. Photograph by W.(?)W.B. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Harvey Cushing was a third-generation physician, born to a family of New England Puritans who had migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid 1830s. His father and grandfather were successful physicians; family members on both […]
Wilder Penfield
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Wilder Penfield, Stamp Wilder Penfield was not only a great surgeon and a great scientist, he was an even greater human being. -Sir George Pickering, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) (Fig. 1) was the most gifted pioneer of Canadian neurosurgery. […]
William Richard Gowers MD., FRS.
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig. 1 Gowers’ Manual. A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System. J London: J. & A. Churchill 1886 The name Gowers is a name hallowed in the minds of most neurologists as one of the great founders of neurological medicine in the Victorian era. He is probably best remembered […]
The smell of burning rubber: the fatal illness of George Gershwin
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, USA George Gershwin, 28 March 1937. Photograph by Carl Van Vetchen. 1937. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. On the morning of Monday July 12, 1937, New Yorkers who had just suffered through five days of a heat wave that left thirty-eight people dead, awoke to read on […]
The brain
Jorge Lazareff Los Angeles, California, United States I first saw this painting in Shanghai around 2006. At the time, I was traveling regularly to China to work with colleagues in a program devoted to enhancing the care of children born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. There are areas in China with an incidence that […]