Tag: Spring 2015
-
The arsenic eaters of Styria
John ParascandolaMaryland, United States In 1851, the medical world learned of the curious practice of arsenic eating among peasants in Styria (now a region of Austria) through an article in a Viennese medical journal by Swiss physician, naturalist, and traveler Johann Jakob von Tschudi. The stimulus for this paper was a trial involving a poisoning…
-
Masters, Lindstrom, and decanal adventures
Marshall A. LichtmanRochester, New York, USA One of the responsibilities of the dean is to foster the relationship of alumni with the school. This effort can lead to enhanced financial support, but it can also bind accomplished graduates, who may or may not think fondly of their alma mater, to the school and its programs.…
-
Pierre Bretonneau
Aditi SivaramakrishnanUnited Kingdom Pierre Fidèle Bretonneau was a French physician known for being one of the first to explore new ideas of medicine and science relating to bacteria and disease. Born into a middle-class family of healers and medical practitioners, Bretonneau quickly gained an interest in history and medicine, encouraged by his father who was…
-
Lessons from the black hole
Columba QuigleyLondon, United Kingdom The episode occurred some few years ago, when I was working in palliative medicine, caring for those with advanced and often incurable disease. As I walked onto the ward early one morning, a woman whom I had been seeing on a daily basis for symptom control started screaming at me. Only…
-
Carlos Montezuma, MD
Raymond CurryIllinois, United States Carlos Montezuma (1865?–1923) was a unique figure and a fascinating study in the construction of a meaningful and influential life astride two often conflicting cultures. He was one of the first two Native Americans to receive an MD degree (1889). Although most of his contributions were as an activist and writer,…
-
A fine notion
Ruth Z. DemingWillow Grove, Pennsylvania, USA Think of the worst disease imaginable. That’s what I’ve got. ALS, Lou Gehrig’s. One of 30,000 Americans. Me, a chaired professor of law at Temple University. Maple Oaks has a good reputation. I signed the reams of papers to get in. But, damn, it takes a long time for…
-
When good doctors have bad outcomes: improving clinical practice in a results-oriented environment
Lloyd KleinChicago, Illinois, United States Making good judgments that are patient-centered and evidence-based seem straightforward when evaluated from the executive perch, but the practitioner in the trenches knows that despite an extensive knowledge base and vast experience the myriad decisions, large and small, which constitute daily practice pose abundant opportunities for error and misjudgment. As…
-
Patients and society: The big divide
J.M.S. PearceUnited Kingdom But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature, is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), On Liberty, chapter 3, 1859 John Snow’s classical publication, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 1849, exemplified the undoubted benefits…
-
The stethoscope
Fiona RobertsonScotland, United Kingdom One of the most iconic tools of the medical profession is the stethoscope. Here we see René-Théophile-Hyacinthe Laennec, a French physician, using his prototype monoaural stethoscope. It was a wooden cylinder one inch and a half in diameter, one foot long, and tapered at the end like a funnel. This embryonic…
-
Helen Taussig: Founder and mother of pediatric cardiology
Colin PhoonNew York, United States On November 29, 1944, a landmark operation arose from the collaboration of three pioneers: Alfred Blalock, Helen Taussig, and Vivien Thomas.1 Now carrying the eponym of the Blalock-Taussig shunt, this was the first “blue baby” operation done during a remarkable early era of heart surgery. Its concept and success resulted…