Tag: Tuberculosis
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The man who hated hospital
Emeka Chibuikem V.Enugu State, Nigeria An emergency patient was in critical condition. The staff nurse on duty moved swiftly to attend to him. Then she went to the waiting hall to meet with the patient’s family and asked them why they had waited so long before bringing him to the hospital. They stared at her,…
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The significant contributors to the history and development of Vietnam’s medicine sector
Tran Nguyen Ngoc NhuHo Chi Minh City, Vietnam Physicians have long held a high position in Vietnamese society. Among many who have improved the health of their local communities, five physicians have notably contributed to science and medicine in Vietnam and beyond. Master Tue Tinh (1330 – ?) Master Tue Tinh’s real name was Nguyen…
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Franz Kafka, A Country Doctor, (and Bob Dylan)
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “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 more stupid the moment you come into their clutches . . .”— Franz Kafka1 Franz Kafka (1883–1924), a German speaking Czech,…
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Selman Waksman, “father of antibiotics” and conquest of tuberculosis
Selman Abraham Waksman came to the United States in 1910 and worked for a few years on a farm in New Jersey. Born in a rural town in Ukraine in 1888, he had become familiar as a child with that country’s rich black soil and developed an interest that later influenced the direction of his…
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Book review: John Keats’ Medical Notebook
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for…
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The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera
Lea C. DacyEelco F. M. WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept right on singing.* Operatic death is often glorious, melodious, and heartbreaking. Naturally, composers and librettists can claim pristine ignorance when it comes to the process of dying. Leaving…
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Simon Flexner, infectious diseases pioneer
Simon Flexner. circa 1930s. Courtesy of the Rockefeller Archive Center. Source, Infectious diseases shaped the life of Simon Flexner, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most successful and prominent scientists in American medicine. His contributions to the field of infectious diseases were legion. He became the first chairman of pathology at…
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Girolamo Cardano: Renaissance physician and polymath
Born at Pavia in the duchy of Lombardy in 1501, Girolamo Cardano practiced medicine for fifty years but is remembered chiefly as a polymath. He composed 200 works, made important contributions to mathematics and algebra, invented several mechanical devices (some still in use today), and published extensive philosophical tracts and commentaries on the ancient philosophers…