Tag: Spain
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Antezana Hospital, Spain
Mojca RamšakLjubljana, Slovenia In the center of the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, stands an exceptional institution—the Antezana Hospital, officially Hospital de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia. It is one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals in Western Europe, having functioned for more than five centuries. Today, it houses a nursing home…
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The early death of Alfonso XII
Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain ¿Dónde vas Alfonso XII?¿Dónde vas triste de ti?Voy en busca de MercedesQue ayer tarde no la vi. Where are you going, Alfonso XII?Where are you going so blue?I am looking for MercedesYesterday I did not see her. —Popular Spanish song King Alfonso XII of Spain was born in Madrid on November 28,…
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King Henry III of Castile, the Suffering
Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Henry III of Castile was called “the Suffering” (in Spanish, Enrique III el Doliente) because of his ill health. He was the son of John I and Eleanor of Aragon, born in 1379 in Burgos. Henry was the first person to hold the title of Prince of Asturias as heir to the…
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The role of doctors in the intellectual life of Spain
“One of the aspects of Spanish intellectual life which struck me repeatedly was the fact that civic leadership so often rested in the hands of medical men. They wrote the best books, made the most daring statements and were revered as the elements of society that could be trusted to support good movements. The doctors…
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Dancing with spiders: Tarantellas and tarantism
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “There are always hysterical people undergoing extraordinary cures.”– Robertson Davies, The Cunning Man The industrial city of Taranto is in the “heel” of boot-shaped Italy. The Romans called the city Tarentum,1 and part of its historical importance comes from its name. Confusion has also arisen from that name’s overuse. A traditional folk…
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A tangled web: Stealing newborns in twentieth-century Spain
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “We were Europe’s baby supermarket and babies were stolen for sixty years.”1— Inés Madrigal Twentieth-century Spain was a politically unstable, highly divided nation. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII abdicated after the results of elections were interpreted as a plebiscite on abolishing the monarchy.2 What followed was “one weak government after another.”3 In…
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The Queen’s quickening: The phantom pregnancies of Mary I
Eve ElliotDublin, Ireland In November 1554, the people of England believed a miracle had taken place. Resplendent on her new throne, Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII, proudly revealed that she was with child. She was thirty-seven (past the usual childbearing age in the Tudor era) and had only been married to her much…
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Guadalupe: One of Spain’s oldest schools of medicine
Nicolás Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Guadalupe, a small Spanish town in the district of Cáceres, Extremadura, arose around a monastery. Legend says that a shepherd named Gil Cordero was looking for a stray sheep when the Virgin Mary appeared to him. When the shepherd told of this apparition, the clergymen of Cáceres went to the place…
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The intricate forest of the neuron
Silvia MainaTorino, Italia Entering the room, I was welcomed by some small and attractive ink drawings. In the first, like a genealogical tree or a medieval miniature, thin branches stretched to fill the frame. In the second, waves of sea anemones wrapped into the algae that populates the sea floor. The exposition, entitled Organisms and…