Tag: Spring 2015
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Cultural warfare: investigating childbirth practices in Doctor Zhivago
Stephanie S. ColelloNew York, United States I was fortunate to spend a year studying the transformation of Russian childbirth practices through the lens of Russian literature—an endeavor that at first glance may seem farfetched. However, I quickly realized that no birth scene is written as a proverbial “island”; often stemming directly from the societal perception…
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Historical contraception: birth control before “the pill”
Emily R. W. DavidsonChapel Hill, United States Since the advent of the birth control pill, birth control advocates claim that women’s control over their reproductive potential increased the proportion of women in the US workforce over the course of the 20th century (Fig 1). Long before the oral contraceptive pill’s emergence, however, women found ways…
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Alexander Gordon and puerperal fever
C. John ScottAberdeen, Scotland The epidemic of childbed (puerperal) fever that struck the city of Aberdeen, Scotland, between December 1789 and March 1792 was unusual. It occurred not in the dirty, crowded, and ill-ventilated wards of lying-in hospitals, but throughout the city and surrounding villages. Serendipitously, one doctor cared for most of the patients. This…
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Saint Sebastian nursed by Saint Irene
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States She wears neither latex gloves nor mask, yet Saint Irene performs surgery of the most epic kind, shown here pulling a deadly arrow from the thigh of Saint Sebastian. He was a Roman soldier who incurred the wrath of Emperor Diocletian for protecting Christian martyrs. She, the surgeon-nurse, was a…
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Bush medicine leaves
Rose TaskerAdelaide, Australia The leaves of the Kurrajong, or Kurrawong tree (Brachychiton1) have been captured in several paintings by Australian Aboriginal women artists. These stylistic and iconic paintings first gained international attention in 1999, when one work by Gloria Petyarre (1945 – ) won the Australian “Wynne Prize” for landscape. Pictured here, the winning piece,…
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The doctor and the doll
Ravi ShankarAruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands Norman Rockwell, one of the most famous American artists of the twentieth century, depicted ordinary American life from an optimistic perspective. He once stated that he did not portray the ugly and the sordid, but portrayed life as he would like it to be. One of his paintings, Doctor…
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Reflections on medicine and art
Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Oscar Wilde believed that life imitates art and that what we perceive is beautiful only because “art” has taught us to regard it as such. But if indeed “life is art,” as Maxim Gorki wrote, “to be found in all its beauty and joy,” then clearly life has been with us since…
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Calibrating the messiah complex: a success and a failure
Daniel Luftig United States It had been Fat’s delusion for years that he could help people. His psychiatrist once told him that to get well he would have to do two things; get off dope (which he hadn’t done) and stop trying to help people (he still tried to help people). — VALIS1 Bill Murray as…
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“Hills Like White Elephants” and the collusion of non-communication
Clayton Baker Rochester, New York, United States Photography by Vanessa P. There is a particular type of dysfunctional communication that can occur between doctor and patient, a sort of a temporary folie-a-deux. This “collusion of non-communication” happens when a doctor-patient interview reaches a topic that one or both parties find particularly distasteful, frightening, or…