Tag: Summer 2014
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Casanova: Patient Zero and other insights into sexual health in the 1700s
Beth Jarosz Washington, DC, United States Portrait of Giacomo Casanova, 18th century Moscow State Historical Museum, Russia Giacomo Casanova, the infamous rake, is responsible for providing historians and anthropologists with a veritable treasure trove of historical health information. His life spanned from 1725 to 1798, and his memoir, Histoire de Ma Vie, recounts nearly…
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Chance in the origins of antibiotics
William Kingston Dublin, Ireland The discovery of antibiotics has been described as the “domestication of microorganisms” and ranks in importance with the domestication of animals as part of settled agriculture about 10,000 years ago. It depends upon antagonism between bacteria, which had been noticed as early as 1874, and Pasteur commented then that if…
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The tree doctor
This is about a Frenchman living in Provence, at the foot of the Alps. He had lost his son and his wife, and lived alone, in solitude, as a shepherd, in a desolate area where there were no trees, nothing green, no grass, no bushes, only lavender. But he had many acorns and with a…
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Nabokov’s first masterpiece
Nicholas KangAuckland, New Zealand Gradually the lights disappeared, the phantoms grew sparser, and a wave of oppressive blackness washed over him. The Defense, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, describes the mental breakdown and ultimate suicide of its fictional protagonist Aleksandr Ivanovich Luzhin. It is a remarkable literary rendering of what might be termed the process…
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“Super” heroes: Special powers in deaf characters
Paul DakinLondon, United Kingdom In 2012 Marvel Comics produced a cover featuring New Hampshire Senator Lou D’Allesandro’s four-year-old grandson Anthony as Blue Ear, a superhero wearing a hearing aid. Anthony refused the prosthetic because superheroes did not wear them. His mother contacted the company hoping to find an inspirational example and received the specially-created artwork…
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Chekhov: “Ward No. 6”
Stanley Gutiontov Chicago, Illinois, United States Anton Chekhov “Andrei Yefimich understood everything. Without saying a word, he walked to the bed Nikita had given him and sat down; seeing that Nikita was waiting, he stripped naked and became embarrassed. He then put on his hospital clothes; the pants were too short, the shirt was…
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The incubator
MAS AhmedNatasja VandepitteLondon The incubator is a common sight in every Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Its history is of interest because of its influence on patient care and on the ensuing societal change. Babies were an exclusively female domain, and it was up to the mothers to take care of their newborns, including those…
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A theologian answers questions about the heart: St. Thomas Aquinas’ De Motu Cordis
Michael PottsNorth Carolina, United States Suppose you are a high school teacher in a basic biology class and you have a question about the function of the heart. You decide to ask an expert, so you dial a university and ask for . . . a theologian. This is what one teacher did, although he…
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“And of scurvy the teeth fall out of them”
Katarina VillnerStockholm, Sweden And of scurvy the teeth fall out of them;for scurvy and throat diseases I have used lemonsas long I had any left, for as soon as I came downI bought 200 lemons from a Dutch ship and he had no more.1 Henrik Fleming, a Swedish nobleman, wrote the above quotation in a…