Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Mankind and the camel: An old romance

September 6, 2022

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Figure 1 (left). Dromedary camels, Saudi Arabia. Figure 2 (right). Bactrian camel, Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, Illinois.   “The camel is a horse designed by a committee.” This quotation is attributed to Sir Alec Issgonis (1906–1988), a British car designer who worked for the Morris Minor Company […]

Gouty quotes

March 5, 2021

JMS Pearce  Hull, England   Fig. 1 A decrepit man screaming in pain from gout, rheumatism and catarrh; represented as three tormenting devils. Coloured etching by J. Cawse, 1809, after G.M. Woodward. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) The recent reproduction of G. Cruikshank’s A self-indulgent man afflicted with gout by a demon burning […]

Wet nursing: a historical perspective

October 14, 2020

Mariella Scerri Mellieha, Malta   A Russian wet nurse, c. 1913. Painted by Frederic de Haenen public domain via Wikimedia. Wet nursing, a form of breastfeeding provided by someone other than an infant’s biological mother,1 has a long and sometimes controversial history. Death in childbirth, a mother’s illness, as well as cultural habits and circumstance […]

Just like that

January 27, 2017

Kanani Titchen Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Timekeeper by Vesna Jovanovic Ay, but to die, and go we know not where, To lie in cold obstruction and to rot, This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod . . . William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure Claudio: Act III, Sc. i   “Happy New Year!” […]