Tag: Winter 2022
-
Habsburg dynasty and progenia
Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Oscar Wilde (1854–1900, Irish poet) once said that “LIFE IMITATES ART. However, much more often, ART IS THE ONE THAT IMITATES LIFE.”1,2 In PROGENIA (mandibular prognathism) there is a poor relationship between the upper and lower teeth, upper and lower jaws, or between the jaw and the teeth. The most severe form…
-
Book review: Insulin – The crooked timber
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The title of this interesting book is taken from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who wrote that: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made.” It is applicable to the tortuous way scientific discoveries are made and is particularly pertinent to diabetes and the…
-
Nikolai Medtner: his forgotten melodies, music, and life
Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Nikolai Medtner recording for HMV, 1947. Photographer unknown, copyright controlled, courtesy of Warner Classics. The music of Nikolai Medtner (1880 -1951) is among the most enigmatic of the piano repertoire. Medtner was an opinionated composer who admired Rachmaninoff and rejected all attempts at modernism in music. Rachmaninoff met…
-
William Withering’s botanical microscope
JMS Pearce East Yorks, Hull, England Fig 1. William Withering (left). Engraving by W. Bond after a painting by Carl Frederik von Breda, 1822. Public domain. Via Wellington Local Agenda 21 Group. Frontispiece colored illustration of foxglove from An Account of the Foxglove by William Withering (right). Printed by M. Swinney for G. G.…
-
“The trial” of Dr. Spock
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Spock Behind G.W. Library. Photo by Warren K. Leffler, October 15, 1969. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”1 — Rudolf Virchow, M.D. (1821-1902)…
-
Samuel Johnson: “The great convulsionary”
JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Samuel Johnson. Portrait by Joshua Reynolds, 1772. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. This paper reproduces in an abridged form an earlier article by its author1 appraising the evidence that Samuel Johnson suffered from Tourette’s syndrome. Several authors have commented on the many eccentricities of Dr. Samuel Johnson (Fig 1).2…
-
Love as illness: Symptomatology
Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States Is love a disease? I mean erotic, obsessive, knees-a-trembling, passionate love. This is a question on which philosophers have descanted interminably. So have anthropologists, physicians, poets, and, in short, all those who suffer what Juvenal called insanabile cacoethes scribendi1 (“the incurable mania of writing”). All these have set forth their…
-
Wedding anniversary
Paul Rousseau Charleston, South Carolina, United States Woman treating a patient in an intensive care unit. U.S. Government photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan M. Breeden. U.S. Navy Medicine on Rawpixel. Public domain. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned… — W. B. Yeats, The…
-
Happy hypoxia
Khyati Gupta Mumbai, India Scots Mission Hospital, Tiberias (Torrance). Hospital beds. Photo. Matson Collection, c. 1934-39. Library of Congress. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Poet’s statement: Happy hypoxia is a poem I wrote while trying to capture the thoughts of a patient in solitude infected with coronavirus amidst the second wave of the pandemic. …