Tag: Summer 2014
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Illness shapes the course of human events
K. N. Lai Hong Kong, China Liu Bei, the founding emperor of the state of Shu-Han, 7th century. The revered leader may have had Marfan syndrome. These items, part of the Gerald Chow Memorial Lecture delivered to the Hong Kong College of Physicians, illustrate the many connections between medicine and the humanities, as well as exemplifying how…
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Ibn Sīnā cures a prince who thinks he is a cow
Alan WeberDoha, Qatar Sifting through literature we recover strange grains of medical truth. The twelfth century poet Nizámí-i-‘Arúdí relates the following story about the celebrated physician Ibn Sīnā or Avicenna (AD 980–1037): One of the princes of the House of Búya was attacked by melancholy, and was in such wise affected by the disease that…
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A changing view of death
Amber Mills Anthea Gellie Michele Levinson Malvern, Australia Roman mosaic depicting fight between two gladiators, 4th century National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, Spain We sit at a phase in human development when life expectancy is greater than ever before. In classical Rome life expectancy was a mere 28 years for an adult, in Medieval Britain it…
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Learning medicine by writing letters
Matko Marušić Croatia It was Tony, a learned doctor from the USA, who gave me the idea of having students write letters to their patients. He mentioned he had first heard about this some sixty years ago at Yale. At first he did not take seriously my immediate elation and determination to introduce it…
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The changing role of the patient in medical practice
Katrin Platzer United Kingdom Introduction Fig. 1 – The four humors, 17th century Centerpiece of Galen’s medical theory Charles Le Brun Over the past 200 years, the practice of medicine has changed dramatically. It can be said that until the end of the 18th century most of medicine was based on scant…
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Transfusion reactions hidden from history
Philip CrispinAustralian Capital Territory Dr. James Blundell (1790–1878) was the first to transfuse blood from one human to another, with variable success. At the forefront of transfusion, he also played a role too in understanding transfusion reactions. He completed his medical degree in Edinburgh, then trained under his uncle, Dr. Haighton, whom he later succeeded…
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G.K. Warrier
Prem ChandranIowa Des Moines, United States On the morning of an auspicious wedding day in a very conservative and ritualistic Warrier community in Southern Kerala, India, a seven-year old boy with curious eyes and bushy hair, youngest sibling of the groom, insistently knocked on the door of the bride’s dressing room, saying, “I want to…
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Elizabeth Casson
Victoria BatesUnited Kingdom Dr. Elizabeth Casson (1881–1954) is often overlooked in the history of medicine and the medical humanities. Despite being awarded an OBE and being amongst the first female doctors in the UK, scholarship on her work has largely been confined to small pamphlets or local histories. However, such focused biographical approaches overlook the…
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Mimetic disease
Richard Sobel Peggy Aylsworth Be’er Sheva, Israel Photography by Sami Speaking of Words Try The Faierie Queenie in the original. Classic masterpiece though it may be I need a lesson in Middle English to make my way through virtues of those knights in days gone by, plus the flattery (seeking favor?) of Elizabeth the…
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New life
Hannah Joyner Takoma Park, Maryland, United States Photography by dierk schaefer At first I thought I had a sinus infection, expecting to come home with a course of antibiotics. The doctor initially agreed, but when he heard my account of facial numbness spreading around my left eye, he referred me immediately to a neurologist,…