Tag: Syphilis
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Guadalupe: One of Spain’s oldest schools of medicine
Nicolás Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. The Monastery of Guadalupe. Main entrance. Photo by Rafa G. Recuero. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 ES. Guadalupe, a small Spanish town in the district of Cáceres, Extremadura, arose around a monastery. Legend says that a shepherd named Gil Cordero was looking for a stray sheep when…
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Dr. Aufderheide and the mummies
Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Paleopathology, the study of early animal and human artifacts, offers a historical perspective of disease and injury in the distant past. It uses skeletal and mummified remains as the substrate for this analysis. The discipline is about 200 years old and initially the analysis was based on abnormalities of…
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Mozart and Salieri: from Pushkin to Shaffer
James L. Franklin1 Chicago, Illinois, United States La Calunnia La calunnia è un venticello, Un’auretta assai gentile Che insensibile, sottile, Leggermente, dolcemente, Incomincia a sussurar Piano, piano, terra, terra Sottovoce, sibilando, Va scorrendo, va ronzando S’introduce destramente E le teste ed I Cervelli . . . Calumny is a little breeze A gentile zephyr…
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Alzheimer and his disease
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Alois Alzheimer. 1915 or earlier. From Wikimedia “Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo (powerfully in deed, gently in manner).” — Franz Nissl’s description of Alzheimer (1916) Curiously, until the 1970s the high prevalence Alzheimer’s disease was not recognized as the most common cause of dementia.1 Most demented…
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Frederick Delius and his neurological disease
Photograph of Frederick Delius. 1907. From Monographien moderner musiker. Via Wikimedia. The life of the English composer Frederick Delius and his tragic encounter with the spirochaeta pallida has been extensively documented. He was born in 1862 in the industrial Yorkshire town of Bradford. His family had come to England from Germany but was originally Dutch,…
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Red Beard: A master clinician in nineteenth century Japan
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden A Meeting of Japan, China, and the West, late 18th – early 19th century. Shiba Kōkan. Minneapolis Institute of Art. “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.” —Francis W. Peabody,…
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Book review: Casanova’s Guide to Medicine
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The eighteenth-century Italian Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is today best remembered for legendary amorous pursuits that resulted in his name becoming a part of the English language. What has been forgotten, however, is that he was a remarkable and erudite polymath. He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Padua…
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The life and death of Franz Schubert
Nicolas Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. Pencil-on-paper caricature of singer Johann Michael Vogl (left) and composer Franz Schubert (right). The caption (in German) reads: Michael Vogl and Franz Schubert go out for battle and victory. Attributed to his friend, Franz von Schober – Original is in the Historic Museum of the City of Vienna.…
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Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor, (and Bob Dylan)
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Elk Viewing Sleigh Ride – Thunder Bay Resort, Hillman MI. Photo by Joe Ross. Via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0 “Certainly doctors are stupid, or rather, they’re not more stupid than other people but their pretensions are ridiculous; [but] you have to reckon with the fact that they become more and…