Tag: Spring 2025
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Bells, whistles and rattles: Something to get your teeth into
Christopher DuffinLondon, United Kingdom In the past, teething was seen as a dangerous period in the life of a young child. Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), an English herbalist and apothecary, believed that this time of childhood development was a “necessary evil” and that children were in considerable danger of dying from fevers and convulsions that came…
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Johannes Brahms: His life and health
The musical world remembers Johannes Brahms as one of the leading composers of the Romantic era. His musical output included four symphonies, concertos, a Requiem, folk songs, Lieder, chamber music, and choral works. Born in 1833 in Hamburg, he lived with his family under poor circumstances, began music lessons as a child, and played the…
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Criminal physicians
Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Several doctors in history achieved notoriety for committing murders or for participating in reigns of terror. They range from the British murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen (1910)1 to Joel Le Secournec,2 convicted in France for crimes against hundreds of victims. The surgeon and historian Dr. John Alexandre Olivier Exmling (or Esquemeling) (1646–1798)…
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Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
In the spring of 1860, a seventeen-year-old student Norwegian student at the prestigious Leipzig Conservatory developed a severe case of pleurisy. He ultimately survived a disease which killed most patients in the pre-antibiotic era, but its consequences were permanent and devastating. A destroyed left lung combined with a visible thoracic spine deformity and permanent respiratory…
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William Harvey’s neurology
JMS PearceHull, England This distinguished physician, the greatest physiologist the world has seen, and the brightest ornament of our College.—William Munk1 William Harvey (1578–1657) was born in Folkestone, Kent, and attended King’s School Canterbury before proceeding to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated MD from Padua (1602) and FRCP (1607) and was elected physician…
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Tchaikovsky: His medical life and his death
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) composed wonderful symphonies, operas, and ballets, but suffered greatly during his life from an array of medical and psychological issues. His letters and diaries reveal a lifelong struggle with emotional problems that modern medicine would likely classify as depressive or bipolar disorder. He went through frequent periods of melancholy, social withdrawal,…
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The liver in culture and literature
The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. Dark and heavy with blood, it was often viewed as the seat of the soul, the source of passion, a tool to predict the future, or a symbol of suffering and resilience. In Greek mythology, Prometheus is bound to a rock for stealing fire from…
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The silence between us
Yara AbukhaledMemphis, Tennessee, United States It was just after 2:00 a.m. when the mother rushed into the emergency department, her son cradled in her arms. He was ten years old, barely conscious, his face streaked with soot and tears. His legs were blistered and raw, glistening under the fluorescent lights. She tried to explain what…
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That we are all bastards
Frank González-CrussíChicago, Illinois, United States The indelicate and seemingly insulting phrase that I have chosen as a title for this piece comes from Shakespeare. The great bard, in Cymbeline (II, iv), makes Posthumus say: … We are all bastards.And that most venerable man, which IDid call my father, was I know not whereWhen I was…