Tag: Spring 2014
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Shiloh
Winona WendthWorcester, Massachusetts, United States On December 31, 1814, at 38 Manchester Street in the Paddington section of London, Joanna Southcott lay four days dead. Her body, at one time plump and motherly, was grey, past lividity and rigor mortis, her back and legs already dark, appearing bruised. She hadn’t taken a breath since two…
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Francis Peabody: caring for the patient
“The good physician knows his patient through and through, and his knowledge is bought dearly. Time, sympathy, and understanding must be lavishly dispensed, but the reward is to be found in that personal bond which forms the greatest satisfaction of the practice of medicine. One of the essential qualities of the clinician is his interest…
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A publicly funded health care system of China in 11th to 3rd century BC, as recorded in the Rites of Zhou
Ping YuBethesda, Maryland, United StatesChi LuLexington, Kentucky, United States Since the dawn of history, traditional medicine has been an integral part of the Chinese civilization.1-5 Of particular interest is a publicly funded health care system that might have existed during the reign of the Zhou Dynasty (11th to 3rd century BC). Information about it is…
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How will I change three buses to get to that hospital?
Bindu DesaiChicago, Illinois, United States The call from the emergency room surprised me. In all my years as a neurologist I had never heard of an ‘acute syrinx.’ In a cubicle in the emergency room lay a man in his mid-thirties. He said he had been drinking heavily the night before and, in his happily…
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Pacini’s corpuscles and occult sciences
Gianfranco NatalePaola Lenzi Italy The year 2012 was the bicentenary of the birth of the anatomist and pathologist Filippo Pacini. Born in Pistoia (Tuscany) in 1812, he studied and worked there until 1840; then moved to Pisa and finally to Florence in 1847.1 While still a medical student in Pistoia, he described the corpuscles present along…
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Epilepsy: From the early civilizations to modern days
MAS AhmedRidhwan Bin HassanLondon, United Kingdom Early civilizations Since ancient times epileptic seizures have been subject to paranormal and superstitious beliefs, ranging from demonic causes to divine intervention. Some of the earliest observations were made by the Babylonians, who among their stone slabs on medical diagnostics (1067–1046 BC) had one known as Sakkikumiqtu, which literally…
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Literature in medical school: Why, how, and if
Tabitha SparksMontreal, Canada Do literature courses in medical school make better doctors? Will the doctors be more sensitive, display more empathy? If so, how is this achieved? And what is the evidence it does so? Since 1980 many educators have supported the integration of humanities coursework into medical school curricula. One widespread claim has been…
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Connecting literature with medicine
Rubina NaqviKarachi, Pakistan There is a need for increasing the education of medical students through the use of literature, so that physicians can become knowledgeable about and eager to confront the social, economic, and cultural contributors to illness. This is particularly important when one considers the great differences in economic, environmental, and health-related resources between…
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Incurably curious: mystery and drama in clinical case reports
Julia DahlkampLondon, United Kingdom Introduction In recent years the genre of the written medical case report1 has come to be regarded as unscientific, a form of anecdotal evidence low in the hierarchy of study designs.2 Clinical geneticists, on the other hand, have emphasized its unique quality, as a single observation can offer an understanding that…