Tag: Summer 2019
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We are all hospitalized (metaphorically speaking)
F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States Figure 1. Right section of an etching titled Infirmus eram et visitastis me: (“I was sick and you visited me,” quoted from Matthew 25:36), sometimes attributed to Cornelius Galle. The left section (not shown) has Jesus Christ overseeing the hospital visit. Among the many species of adversity that unavoidably…
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Spherocytosis
Andrea Lollo New York, New York, United States Spherocytes as seen in the blood smear of a patient with hemolytic anemia. Photo by Ed Uthman on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. “Hereditary spherocytosis is a common inherited disorder that is characterised by anaemia, jaundice, and splenomegaly.”1 It was odd, of course, for a ten-year-old…
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William Richard Gowers MD., FRS.
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig. 1 Gowers’ Manual. A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System. J London: J. & A. Churchill 1886 The name Gowers is a name hallowed in the minds of most neurologists as one of the great founders of neurological medicine in the Victorian era. He is probably best remembered…
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Vampires and the Tuberculous Family
Sylvia Pamboukian Moon Township, PA Public health poster, New York National Child Welfare Association, ca. 1920–23. Library of Congress “The Tuberculous Family.” Listed by Library of Congress website with “No known restrictions on publication” An isolated village, a series of mysterious deaths, a mob in the graveyard at midnight—it sounds like the climax of…
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Burnout: Are we looking at it through the wrong lens?
Elizabeth Cerceo Camden, New Jersey, United States The Exhausted Ragpicker. Jean François Raffaëlli. 1880. The Art Institute of Chicago. The epidemic of burnout seems to afflict ever more populations as it insidiously creeps into the workplace of everyone from nurses to teachers, from medical students to seasoned clinicians, from Amazon to Apple. As physicians,…
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George Bernard Shaw’s The Doctor’s Dilemma
In the first act of Shaw’s play, several doctors come to congratulate Sir Colenso Ridgeon, recently knighted for discovering that white blood cells will not eat invading microbes unless they are rendered appetizing by being nicely buttered with opsonins. Patients supposedly manufacture these opsonins on and off, and would be cured if inoculated when their…
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It’s elementary: The addictions of Sherlock Holmes
Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, USA Illustration of Sherlock Holmes for “The Valley of Fear.” From The Strand Magazine. By Frank Wiley September, 1914. Accessed via the Toronto Public Library, Adventures with Sherlock Holmes virtual exhibit. One might ask, why write about the addictions of a fictional character? The answer is that there is often…
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Maria Lorenza Longo and the birth of the “Incurabili” Hospital in Naples
Marco Luchetti Milano, Italy Maria Lorenza Longo. Source In the Middle Ages hospitals were charitable institutions that took care of those that could not afford a doctor at home, such as the poor, elderly, orphans, and single mothers. In Naples there was an urgent need for a large facility with many doctors where “incurable”…
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Cranium: the symbolic powers of the skull
F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, USA It Was a Man and a Pot. Georgia O’Keeffe. 1942. Crocker Art Museum Of all bodily parts, the head has traditionally enjoyed the greatest prestige. The Platonic Timaeus tells us that secondary gods (themselves created by the Demiurge) copied the round form of the universe to make the head,…