The death of James Abram Garfield
Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States James Abram Garfield. By Ole Peter Hansen Balling. 1881. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Public Domain. The medical treatment of some US presidents and ex-presidents has been controversial. One example is George Washington, who in 1799 at age sixty-seven suffered from an acute throat ailment that was treated […]
John Caius, the polymath who described the sweating sickness
Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States John Caius (1510-1573), Master of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. 1563. Unknown painter. Credit: Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge. Imagine being a physician in a rural community in England in the mid-sixteenth century, always concerned with the reappearance of the Black Death. Late one summer you […]
Philosophy of science and medicine series — IV: Alexandrian period
Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Euclid Ptolemy The Alexandrian tradition was first manifested in the Royal Museum in Alexandria, established by the Ptolomies who ruled […]
Philosophy of science and medicine X: Aristotle to the early 20th Century
Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Aristotle What is natural law? There are certain values in human nature that can be understood through human reason. This implies the use of reason to evaluate binding rules of moral behavior. Inherent in the use of reason, from the Greek philosophers onward, at least in Western Civilization, […]