Tag: Spring 2019
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How to save a life
Sam Campbell Moh’D Ibrahim Johnson City, Tennessee, United States “We had been happy together, though it took years to convince her family to allow us to marry.” My wife is in Texas, threatening to file divorce papers. I am here, 996 miles away, trying to find Mrs. Smith who has wandered out of her…
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Luigi Galvani: beginnings of electrophysiology
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Fig 1. Lithograph: portrait of L. Galvani. From Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Physicist or physician? Scientist or healer? Artificially, these are divisions that have classified doctors through the ages. Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) (Fig 1.) showed that it was possible to be an amalgam of both.…
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Samuel Clossy’s Observations: an unrecognized contribution to the origin of anatomical pathology
Guillermo Quinonez Ancaster, ON, Canada Laurette Geldenhuys Halifax, NS, Canada Title page of Site and Causes of Disease by Giovanni Battista Morgagni It is often stated in the medical history literature that Anatomical Pathology was established as a modern science in 1761 when Giovanni Battista Morgagni published Site and Causes of Disease (Figure 1)…
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Pig-tail probe
Zeynel Karcioglu Charlottesville, Virginia, United States A cartoon by the author comparing the tails and depicting the probe in question. I read with great interest Dr. Stanley Gutiontov’s article entitled “Pig man: pigs in medicine from Galen to transgenic xenotransplantation” in Hektoen International, and it reminded me of an amusing “pig-related” experience I had…
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Dangerous inheritance
Merle Borg San Diego, California, United States Prehistoric Rock Paintings at Manda Guéli Cave in the Ennedi Mountains – northeastern Chad. Photo by David Stanley. 2015. CC BY 2.0. It was an ordinary accident. Two boys driving to high school had topped a hill too fast, and wedged their small pickup under a stopped…
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The iron crab
Sean Varner Baltimore, Maryland, United States Fleming’s epitaph, “Omnia perfunctus vitae praemia, marces,” translated as “Having enjoyed all life’s prizes, you now decay,” comes from On the Nature of Things Book Three by Lucretius which explores the fear of death. Fleming suggested the following epitaph for Bond: “I shall not waste my days in…
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Infertility in Nigeria and the race for parenthood
Princewill UdomPort Harcourt, Nigeria Infertility is a growing problem in Nigeria. In one study, researchers found that female gender-related causes accounted for 42.9% of infertility, in contrast to male causes, which were about half that number.1 Common causes are broadly categorized into genetic, physiological, endocrine, and lifestyle factors. One consequence of this problem is a…
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Grandfather of allergy: Dr. Bill Frankland, the ardent centenarian
John Turner United Kingdom Captain A. W. Frankland Image credit Paul Watkins Research for Far East Prisoners of War History Group Fepowhistory.com “For your final choice?” Dr. William Frankland at one hundred and three, the oldest guest ever to appear in the London studio of the BBC’s Desert Island Discs, chose Elgar’s Nimrod in…
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Intersection of faith and science in Garcia-Marquez’s Of Love and Other Demons
Sualeha Shekhani Karachi, Pakistan St. Benedict Exorcising a Demon. Simone Cantarini. c. 1630s. Philadelphia Museum of Art. “If the swords of past conflicts are beaten into plowshares, and if taboos regarding the discussion of religion can be overcome, both medicine and religion can learn constructively from each other.”1 The opposition of reason and religion…