Tag: Spring 2017
-
Sir Roderick Glossop: Wodehouse’s “eminent loony doctor”
Paul DakinNorth London, UK P.G. Wodehouse is one of the greatest comic authors of the twentieth century. He wrote nearly a hundred books containing a fascinating array of characters. Many inhabited the confined geography of 1920’s London and country houses, with occasional trips to New York or the French Riviera. This was the world Wodehouse…
-
Love, cancer, and the caregiver’s faith of C.S. Lewis
Joshua NiforatosCleveland, Ohio, United States Poi se torno all’ eternal fontana.Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, Canto XXXI C.S. Lewis, the medieval and Renaissance scholar of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, wrote prolifically on myriad topics and won international recognition early in life. During the Second World War, Lewis had numerous broadcast talks that made his voice second only…
-
Sir Samuel Wilks (1824–1911)
Sir Samuel Wilks was one of the most influential English general physicians of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was a careful clinician and an accomplished investigator, always trying to correlate clinical and pathology findings. Author of seven books and fifteen separate articles or pamphlets, he wrote some 450 papers, including one defending…
-
William Babington
William Hazlitt, in one of his many essays that used to be inflicted on long-suffering schoolchildren, reminded his readers that “posterity are by no means as disinterested as they are supposed to be. They give their gratitude and admiration only in return for benefits conferred. They cherish the memory of those to whom they are…
-
Night shift
Andrew SchroederDes Moines, Iowa, United States My first overnight shift as a third-year medical student in the Emergency Department: the nervous anticipation had been building all afternoon. Of course nothing really tangible separates a day-shift from a night-shift, except perhaps a feeling of well-restedness by the end of a long series of night-shifts. The anticipation,…
-
Locked-in syndrome: Inside the cocoon
Anika KhanKarachi, Pakistan “…what will you carry back from this field trip into my endless solitude?”From The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby (1997) In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby suffered a massive stroke that made him a prisoner in his own body.1 Within the space of a few hours, his hectic, animated existence…
-
The origins and development of the Lewis Hospitals
Nicola MacArthurAberdeen, Scotland The Isle of Lewis is the largest island of Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. Its current population of 18,500 has decreased from 30,000 in the eighteenth century, when one fifth lived in the capital, Stornoway. Throughout history Stornoway was an important center for the fishing industry, naval harbor during World War I, and air…
-
The lost papyrus? Eureka! An African voice
Ohakpougwu EmmanuelAccra, Ghana The year is 1279 BC, the beginning of the reign of Ramesses II. There are cries and incantations as the priests mumble words and family stand by my bedside alongside pots of medicines for my ailment. I lie on my death bed and drift through the memories of our achievements. If I…
-
Redefining the war on cancer
Justin SheaOntario, Canada Ever since Richard Nixon declared war on cancer in 1971, the public has been convinced that the only way to deal with the disease is through combat1. But after forty years with destructive remedies such as chemo and immunological therapy failing to guarantee permanent remission, could it be possible that the medical…