Tag: Winter 2023
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Is a bigger brain better?
Matimba Molly ChilalaNdola, Zambia Does intelligence depend on the size and dimensions of the brain? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, intelligence can be defined as the ability to understand or deal with novel or trying situations. It is also described as a mental quality that consists of the ability to learn from experience, adapt to…
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The two Sylvius anatomists
Buried deep in the cobwebs of medical history lies the persisting misconception that a single person called Sylvius made important advances in the discipline of anatomy. But in fact, there were two persons remembered by that name. There was Jacobus, whose name is most commonly linked to the Aqueduct of Sylvius, and there was Franciscus,…
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Jean-Françoise Champollion—Revisiting his illnesses and death
Maureen HirthlerRichard HutchisonBradenton, Florida “I’ve found it!” In 1822, Jean-Françoise Champollion (December 23, 1790 – March 4, 1832) told his brother he had a breakthrough in deciphering the Rosetta Stone, then collapsed to the floor. He had been ill for most of his life with various complaints—fainting and collapse, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath,…
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A day in the team room
Kirin SaintAnn Arbor, MI Today is Monday, May 2. The day starts before the sun has risen, before pink-lavender hues warm the earth, as two internal medicine interns slink in, yawning and bleary eyed, careful not to spill their coffee onto their well-worn scrubs. The residents stride into the room, greet one another, lament the…
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A pandemic of emotions: Navigating vaccine hesitancy in a post-pandemic world
Nidhi Bhaskar Providence, Rhode Island Photo by CDC on Pexels Four years before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was registering community members at a local health fair. An elderly man in line mentioned that he would never receive a flu shot because his healthy cousin had died of an aneurysm after receiving one. I spoke…
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The Neuron Doctrine: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi
JMS PearceHull, England There can be few medical works of such importance as the study of the fine structure of the nerve cell that began in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. The two principal adventurers (Fig 1) in this field were the Italian Camillo Golgi (1843–1926) and the Spaniard Santiago Ramón y…
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Baudelaire’s spleen
Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux,Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très-vieux,Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,S’ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d’autres bêtes.Rien ne peut l’égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. I am like the king of a rainy country, richbut…
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Studying mummies and eggs: The delights of paleopathology
Paleopathology is the study of disease by using mummified and skeletal remains, documents, early books, paintings, sculptures, and coprolites. Earlier investigators such as Esper and Cuvier focused on non-human specimens, but later ones expanded their interests to humans. They studied the ancient Egyptians and found evidence of osteoarthritis, tuberculosis, leprosy, and smallpox, as well as…
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Ernst von Bergmann, the surgeon who heat-sterilized surgical instruments
After Louis Pasteur showed that diseases were caused not by miasmas but by bacteria, Lord Lister pioneered antiseptic surgery by seeking to exterminate these unwelcome organisms with his carbolic acid pump. This martial approach was later followed by aseptic surgery, in which bacteria were to be kept out of the operating room and away from…
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Fixed schedules and no kissing: Child rearing according to Drs. Holt and Watson
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”– Benjamin Spock, MD Child rearing “experts” first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. L. Emmett Holt, MD (1855–1924), graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880. He decided to devote himself to pediatrics, which was not yet a…