Tag: Spring 2021
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Remembering Sir Thomas Lewis’ contribution to understanding heart failure
Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Sir Thomas Lewis (1881–1945) has been called one of the “fathers of modern cardiology” due to his many significant contributions to that discipline. In 1930 he wrote a landmark paper clarifying the disease “congestive (heart) failure,” revealing clues that are present in the jugular veins, for making the diagnosis and…
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Moral judgment in medicine: “sensibility of heart”
Jack Coulehan Stony Brook, New York, United States Clinicians in Intensive Care Unit. 2011. Photo by Calleamanecer. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 I want to reflect on the role of emotions, or “sensibility of heart,” in medical judgment. I take the term “judgment,” in general, to refer to the human capacity of assessing, analyzing,…
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Dr. William Minor and the Oxford English Dictionary
JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK Fig 1. Johnson’s Dictionary [photo: author’s copy] After the first dictionary of English words (Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabetical… 1604) many dictionaries aimed to provide typical spelling, meaning, and often pronunciation, etymology, synonyms, and quotations. A New English Dictionary was an important advance reflecting everyday language compiled by the…
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Pain management
Andrew Yim Hamden, Connecticut Clear glass bottle containing ‘Papine’ brand liquid (opium and morphine hydrochloride). Science Museum Group Collection. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Once a month, Ada tells me about her pain and then I write a script for oxycodone. When Ada tires of my Spanish or I of her English, we use a phone…
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Seeking medicalization: chronic illness without diagnosed disease
Camille Kroll Chicago, Illinois, United States Surgical scars and the expansion of narrative possibilities. By Camille Kroll. I was wheeled into the bright lights of the operating room with the symptom-based diagnoses of chronic pelvic pain and irritable bowel syndrome. When I groggily emerged several hours later, I had a new label: someone with…
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A return to The Plague
Bonnie Salomon Chicago, Illinois, United States Cover of 1991 edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. For the past fifteen months, I have been reading and returning to Albert Camus’ 1947 novel, The Plague. Chronicling a fictional plague epidemic in Oran, Algeria, the narrator Dr. Rieux tells the saga of a city’s horrific struggle.…
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Diane de Poitiers, a case of mammary narcissism
A Lady in Her Bath, by Francois Clouet, 1571. National Gallery of Art, Washington. The woman in partial undress shown by Francois Clouet as A Lady in Her Bath is believed to be the famous mistress of the French King Henry II, Diane de Poitiers.1 Born in 1499 in the château of St. Vallier on…
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Morris Fishbein, MD—foe of four-flushers, flimflammers, and fakes
Laura King Atlanta, Georgia, United States Morris Fishbein. Harris & Ewing, photographer. [ca. 1938]. Via Library of Congress Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 22, 1889, and raised in Indianapolis, Morris Fishbein emerged from his humble origins as the second eldest of eight children born to a Jewish immigrant tin peddler (Benjamin…
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Viktor Frankl: the meaning of a life
Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Figure 1. Viktor Frankl, 1965. Photo by Prof. Dr. Franz Vesely via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 DE. Not long before the Dachau concentration camp was liberated in April 1945, Viktor Emil Frankl was seriously ill with typhus and writing feverishly on stolen scraps of paper, determined to…