Tag: Paris
-
Dr. Désiré-Magloire Bourneville: a man ahead of his time
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Drawing of a children’s puzzle with different shaped pieces and holes. From Assistance, traitement et éducation des enfants idiots et dégénérés: rapport fait au Congrès National d’assistance publique (session de Lyon, juin 1894) by Bourneville (Paris: Aux bureaux du Progrès médical [etc.], 1895), p. 233. Francis A. Countway Library of…
-
A portrait of dementia
Lindsay RipleyDallas, Texas, United States A few months ago, I watched The Father, a film with Olivia Colman in a main role and Anthony Hopkins as the titular father. Hopkins plays Anthony, a character who bears Hopkins’ own name because writer and director Florian Zeller wrote the part imagining Hopkins in it. Like Hopkins, now…
-
A note on Joseph Jules Dejerine (1849–1917)
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, medicine in Paris flourished.1 Under the charismatic Charcot, it matched or excelled the contemporary advances in Germany and Britain. In the footsteps of Cruveilhier, Gratiolet, and Vicq d’Azyr came Charcot, Vulpian, Pierre Marie, Babinski, Gilles de la Tourette, and Sigmund Freud, who…
-
In Aristotle’s footsteps
Henri Colt Laguna Beach, California, United States Photo by Gianluca Cinnante on Unsplash. Squatting on a cement slab, the old doctor watched sea urchins bristle their spines in clear Aegean waters. His short brown tunic covered shoulders broad as an oxen’s chest. He flexed his tanned, muscular forearms and clenched his fists, then rolled…
-
Book review: Medicine in the Middle Ages
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In the history of Western Europe, the Middle Ages refers to the period between the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century through the beginning of the Renaissance in the 1500s. These thousand years were characterized by unstable nation-states led by kings and nobility. Tribalism was rife, and…
-
Poe’s murder mystery as a model of neurodiverse inclusion
Geoff HoppeVirginia, United States A murder mystery might seem like a strange place to find hope, but hope is what Edgar Allan Poe’s mysteries can provide—if you know how to look. While Poe’s stories depict the macabre, they also demonstrate how a neurodiverse mind can find inclusion in a neurotypical society. Two instances in a…
-
Leeching and François-Joseph-Victor Broussais
JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK Fig 1. Broussais & leeching. Credit: Encyclopædia Britannica. The practice of bloodletting began with the Egyptians and was succeeded by the Greeks, Romans (including Galen), and healers in India. In medieval times it spread throughout Europe. The “leech craze” was so popular in the nineteenth century that it has…
-
Achilles and his famous tendon
Krzyś StachakBielsko-Biala, Poland The Achilles tendon is one of the best-known parts of the human body not only because of its name but also because injuries to it are so common. As the largest tendon in the body, it connects the heel bones to the calf muscles and allows vertical movement of the foot, so…
-
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…