Tag: Winter 2023
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A history of military medical services
George Porter Newcastle, UK Capsarii depicted on Trajan’s Column. From “The Roman Army Medical Service,” Malton Museum. CC BY-SA 4.0. Hippocrates once said that “war is the only proper school of the surgeon.” War is an undeniable driver of medical innovation, and the structure, procurement and philosophy of military medical services often reflect the…
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The disease called poverty
Olufolakayomi Christiana Thomas Lagos State, Nigeria Photo by Rui Rocha on Flickr. It is a hot Friday afternoon in Lagos, Nigeria. Everyone is gearing up for the weekend and already starting to leave work. The clinic staff does this each week under the guise of attending Friday Jumat prayers, even though the clinic does…
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François Magendie
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. François Magendie. Via Wikimedia. François Magendie (1783–1855) (Fig 1) was a pioneering French physiologist, pharmacologist, and clinician who carried out a surprisingly wide variety of investigations. His best-remembered works are on the fourth ventricular foramen and the function of spinal nerves. He was born in Bordeaux, son of…
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Auguste Renoir and his arthritis
Clearing in the Woods. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1865, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts. Renowned for his colorful portraits and landscapes, Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) was one of the greatest French Impressionists. He painted some 4,000 compositions, many still admired all over the world. But during his last twenty years, he suffered from a debilitating illness…
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Vincenzo Chiarugi, who freed the insane from their chains
Vincenzo Chiarugi. Via Wikimedia. Vincenzo Chiarugi was one of the pioneers of a more humane treatment of the mentally ill, along with William Tuke (1732–1822) in York and Philippe Pinel (1745–1826) and Étienne-Jean Georget (1795–1828) in Paris. They all lived at a time when those with mental illness were frequently confined in dungeons and ill-treated,…
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Henri Parinaud—French physician, composer, and humanitarian
Jason Jo New York, New York Henri Parinaud. Annales d’ oculistique (Paris: Dois, 1905), 320. BIU Santé Médecine, Bibliothèques d’Université Paris Cité. Via Wikimedia. Licence Ouverte / Open Licence. Henri Parinaud (c. 1844–1905), a pioneer in the fields of neurology and ophthalmology, is best remembered for his two eponymous syndromes: the Parinaud oculoglandular syndrome and…
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The climate cure: Treating tuberculosis in the nineteenth century
Brendan PulsiferAtlanta, Georgia Tuberculosis pervaded nineteenth-century American life like no other disease. More commonly known as consumption at the time, it was responsible for one in five deaths, making it the deadliest pathogen for people across ages, genders, and classes. Doctors often described tuberculosis as the most dangerous illness in their clinical practice because of…
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Corn, pellagra, and modern medicine—How an ancient disease was recognized in South Carolina’s state lunatic asylum
Brody Fogleman Harsh Jha Noel Brownlee JuliSu DiMucci-Ward Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States James Woods Babcock (1856–1922). Photo courtesy of the Waring Historical Library, MUSC, Charleston, SC. Pellagra is a disease of vitamin B3 (niacin) deficiency. Niacin is the precursor for many physiologic processes involving nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), an enzyme that carries out…
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The fall
Max Kutch Hanover, New Hampshire The author (face shown) with his team. From the author’s personal collection. Gazing through my night vision goggles (NVGs) at the green outlines of my teammates, we began to silently enter our sniper hide. My breathing labored under the heavy weight of my battle gear and the thick, humid…
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Empathy or sympathy?
JMS Pearce Hull, England David Jeffrey’s splendid paper about emotions and empathy1 points out that Sir William Osler claimed that by excluding emotions, doctors gained a special objective insight into the patient’s suffering. But when Osler advised students that “insensibility is not only an advantage, but a positive necessity in the exercise of a…