Tag: Summer 2021
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The migraine aura and royal astronomers
JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Spleen sighs for ever on her pensive bed,Pain at her side and megrim at her head.— “Rape of the Lock”, Alexander Pope (1688-1744) About one third of migraine sufferers experience an aura1 or warning that begins suddenly, lasts about twenty to forty minutes, and most commonly affects vision, and less often,…
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Essential tremor in a medieval scribe: Extracting hidden historical knowledge from the work of the Tremulous Hand
Andrew WodrichWashington DC, United States Introduction In the Middle Ages, before the ubiquity of the printing press, the act of writing and preserving the knowledge of Western Europe was promulgated primarily by monastic scribes.1 These scribes spent hours toiling away in dark rooms copying, translating, and authoring almost all of the written knowledge of their…
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Broca’s Brains: A lesson in the importance of saving the history of neuroscience
Richard BrownHalifax, NS, CanadaThalia Garvock-de MontbrunMontreal, QC, Canada Recent fires at the National Museum of Brazil and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa1,2 have shown the fragility of rare books, scientific records, photographs, and films. Descriptions of book burning by Richard Ovendon3 also highlight how easily historical records can be destroyed by…
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Matron Charlotte Evelyn Nelson (1938-1954) and her portrait by Alice Burton
Frederick John O’DellNorthampton, United Kingdom Charlotte Evelyn Nelson (1894-1959) was born on 13 July 1894 in Hull. Before her sixth birthday she was orphaned, as the 1901 census lists her at the Hull Seamans and General Orphan Asylum, aged six and a schoolgirl. Later she was moved into service and by the 1911 census she…
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Beloved physicians: Three unsung heroes
John RaffenspergerFort Meyers, Florida, United States Few doctors, especially those who practice in small communities across the land, are remembered for their selfless, unstinting devotion to their patients. They are not considered heroes in the usual sense and sadly, for the most part, are now replaced by dehumanizing corporate medicine. The general practitioner or “GP”…
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The intricate forest of the neuron
Silvia MainaTorino, Italia Entering the room, I was welcomed by some small and attractive ink drawings. In the first, like a genealogical tree or a medieval miniature, thin branches stretched to fill the frame. In the second, waves of sea anemones wrapped into the algae that populates the sea floor. The exposition, entitled Organisms and…
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What’s inside us?: Socio-cultural themes in anatomical naming
Frazer A. TessemaChicago, Illinois, United States Anatomical terms often read as Latin or Greek gibberish whose main purpose is to be obscure trivia in the first-year medical school ritual called anatomy class. But a surprising trend emerges through the English translations of these archaic names: many parts of the human body are named not for…
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“Troubled in my eyes”: the risks of reading and writing
Katherine HarveyLondon, England, United Kingdom On January 1, 1660, a young Londoner named Samuel Pepys began to keep a diary. Over the next nine and a half years, he recorded both events of national significance—the Restoration of King Charles II, the Great Plague, and the Great Fire—as well as the minutiae of his private life,…
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Eye contact: A gateway to empathy
David JeffreyEdinburgh, United Kingdom “Do you think I needed anticoagulants for my atrial fibrillation?” I asked the general practitioner. He stared at his computer screen, and answered without looking at me. “No-one knows for sure. I will print out a recent article which you can read at home and then decide what you would like…