Tag: Oxford
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Sir William Osler and Oxford
Göran WettrellLund, Sweden William Osler was one of the most famous physicians and medical teachers of his time. He combined a wide knowledge of clinical medicine and science with humanity and approached patients and people in a humoristic and enthusiastic way.1 Osler has been called “the Father of Modern Medicine.” He revolutionized the teaching of…
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Robert Bentley Todd
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Todd prize for Clinical Medicine (left). Medal by Joseph Shepherd Wyon, 1861. Science Museum, London, United Kingdom. Via Google Arts & Culture. Robert Bentley Todd (right). Mezzotint by G. Zobel, 1860, after D. Y. Blakiston. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. Students of King’s College Hospital London are…
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Sir George Pickering and the low salt diet
Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London, UK. Photo by Enric likes Funk. 2008. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 2.0. As a young man George Pickering was interested in his native Northumbrian countryside and intended to study agriculture. Persuaded later to read for a degree in biochemistry or physiology, he…
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The death of King George V
Seamus O’Mahony London, England Fig 1: Lord Dawson of Penn. Photograph by D. Wilding. Wellcome Collection. Copyright © National Portrait Gallery, London. Public Domain. Bertrand Dawson, Lord Dawson of Penn (1864-1945), was the most eminent British doctor in the years between the two world wars. He was both a skilled medical politician (twice president of the…
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Book review: “All manner of ingenuity and industry”: a bio-bibliography of Dr. Thomas Willis 1621–1675
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Thomas Willis, born four hundred years ago, is still known by students of neuroanatomy today for the eponymous Circle of Willis. Yet most doctors do not know the story of Willis, the seventeenth-century British physician and his remarkable contributions to medical knowledge and literature. This new book, a labor of…
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Book review: The Origins of Modern Science
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Science and medicine have long been intertwined: many advances in the field of medicine would not have been possible without prior knowledge of fundamental science. It is not surprising, therefore, that a medical historian would also find the history of science fascinating. In this book, Ofer Gal has described the…
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Why do physicians write so badly?
Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia An old joke is that pharmacists are the only people who can read physicians’ handwriting. This piece is not about handwriting, but about writing style. Compared with great medical authors, like Somerset Maugham, Conan Doyle, Anton Chekhov, John Keats, and Friedrich von Schiller, most physicians are not good writers. (I could have…
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How Britain rescued scientists from Nazi tyranny
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Signatories to Letter to The Times, 22 May 1933 In March 1933 while visiting Vienna, William Beveridge, Director of the London School of Economics, learned that Hitler had just decreed it illegal for “non-Aryan,” mostly Jewish people to hold posts in the Civil Service. Many lawyers, doctors, and…
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William Sands Cox—surgeon and founder of the Birmingham Medical School
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Drawing of William Sands Cox by T H Mcguire. 1854. Public domain. Via Wikimedia In the early nineteenth century Birmingham was the second largest city in England. It was an industrial powerhouse, known as the city of a thousand trades, but it did not have its own medical…