Tag: Spring 2026
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The Steve Blass syndrome: A case of the yips
Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States He was at the pinnacle of his profession: a baseball champion and hero who had pitched two complete game victories in the 1971 World Series, giving up only seven hits and two runs in eighteen innings while winning the deciding seventh game. In his profile of Steve Blass in The…
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Donne’s “Sonnet X”: “Death Be Not Proud”
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning…
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Edward Granville Browne and Jakob Polak on Persian medicine
Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel The Cambridge physician-orientalist Edward Granville Browne has described in detail further aspects of Islamic and in particular Persian medicine (9th to the 11th century) in his book Arabian Medicine.1,2 He had studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, earned his M.B. degree in 1887, and through his work and lectures was responsible…
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Amerigo Vespucci and the Columbian exchange
Amerigo Vespucci, the man who gave Americans their name, was born in Florence in 1454. Educated in a cultured family that exposed him to classical literature, astronomy, mathematics, and geography, he eventually entered the service of Lorenzo de’ Medici, working in banking and commerce. In the early 1490s, Medici sent him to Seville as a…
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Byzantine women in medicine
Brady LonerganFarmington, Connecticut, United States Literary and material evidence includes medical treatises ostensibly written by female physicians and references to female medical writers’ pharmaceutical contributions as early as the late classical period (fifth century BCE) in the Greco-Roman world.1 The second century CE physician Galen cites remedies attributed to Spendousa, Aquilia Secundilla, and Antiochis.2 The…
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Slovakia: History, healthcare, and politics
The present-day territory of Slovakia has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Celtic tribes settled it first, most notably the Boii, who left behind artifacts such as the famous “Biatec” coins. Germanic tribes later moved through the area; then, the Romans incorporated the southern part of Slovakia into their empire, particularly along the Danube frontier. Early…
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A canvas of grief: Claude Monet’s first wife
Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States The fame and adoration of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet rests primarily on his landscapes, bathed in sunlight and nourished with a soothing palette. Much of his oeuvre evokes a peaceful, harmonious, and fleeting moment in nature. But one very personal work, Camille Doncieux on her Deathbed, featuring his first…
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Medical quackery in L’elisir d’amore
Donizetti’s comic opera L’elisir d’amore (1832) is more than a charming love story set in the Italian countryside. At its core is one of opera’s most memorable charlatans: Doctor Dulcamara. He is a traveling medicine vendor whose snake-oil salesmanship reveals the human desire for magical solutions. Through Dulcamara, Donizetti and his librettist Felice Romani offer…
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Albania: Tradition and resilience in the Western Balkans
Albania is a small country of 2.5 million people, well worth visiting, known for its striking natural landscapes, rugged mountains dominating much of the interior, and coast offering some of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean. In the north, the Albanian Alps attract hikers and travelers seeking dramatic scenery, while traditional village life in…
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Albanian lovers and magnetism in Così fan tutte
In Così fan tutte, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte have the two male protagonists, Ferrando and Guglielmo, return in disguise to test, by wager, the fidelity of their fiancées. The choice of the disguise as Albanians, at first sight exotic and comic, resonates deeply with late 18th-century memories of the 1683 Siege of Vienna, in which the Albanians served…