Tag: reading
-
Women in the medical profession: The trial of Jacoba Felicie de Almania
Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States In November 1322 a group of folk healers and empirics were put on trial by the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Paris. Their crime was practicing medicine without licenses issued by the university. The punishment was excommunication and a fine of sixty Parisian livres.1 Among the group was…
-
Nurse reading
This Turkish postcard shows a nurse reading a letter to a wounded man. The nurse appears to smile, even as her patient remains seemingly indifferent to whatever news she has brought him. The postcard conjures a number of questions. How was he injured? Is he far from home? Who has written him? Where is his…
-
The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part III
Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States A cure for loneliness In the video “What is Literature For?” produced by The School of Life, author Alain de Botton claims that books are a cure for loneliness. Since we cannot always say what we are really thinking in civilized conversations, literature often describes who we genuinely are more…
-
The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part I
Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.—Rudyard Kipling Literature is medicine for the soul In the 1980s, the mother of Northrop Frye, a Canadian literary scholar, was in the hospital, ill and delirious. Seeking to ease her suffering, her father gave her the twenty-five books of…
-
To all the books that saved my life
Dannie OngMelbourne, Australia On the way to therapy, I am reading The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I try not to think about the irony of it all – no job, no degree, not even a life, depending on who you asked – and there I am, filling pages with notes on morning…
-
Reading should be a pleasure, not a burden
I have always felt that reading should be a pleasure. Of course to get anything out of it you must give it your full attention, but to a healthy understanding there is nothing disagreeable in the activity of the intellect. It is however the business of an author to make your perusal of his work…
-
Bed-side library for medical students
A liberal education may be had at a very slight cost of time and money. Well filled though the day be with appointed tasks, to make the best possible use of your one or of your ten talents, rest not satisfied with this professional training, but try to get the education, if not of a…
-
Visionary art and the metaphysical
Evernus WilliamsSearcy, Arizona, United States Artist’s note These works stem from various studies of anatomical structures and their relationship to nature and technology. When I first endeavored to learn about the human form in 2002, I studied anatomical dissections directly at a local college’s lab while also taking life drawing classes. The dissections were stomach…