Tag: Winter 2025
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Seminal contributions from chiefs of surgery at the University of Illinois
Jayant RadhakrishnanAnthony Chin Chicago, Illinois, United States In May of 1881, Drs. Charles Warrington Earle and Abraham Reeves Jackson conceived of a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago (P&S). A core group of physicians immediately procured the necessary licenses and certificates and purchased a lot on Harrison and Honore Streets, near Cook County Hospital. By…
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Fibromuscular dysplasia
Victoria TillerGlenview, Illinois, United States Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a disorder of the arteries, most often affecting the carotid, vertebral, and renal arteries. The interior arterial lining grows abnormally to create intermittent narrowing within the vessel, resulting in “arterial beading” or a “string of beads” on imaging studies. Historically, the condition has often been overlooked…
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Clausoque stomacho: An unrecognized factor in the death of the Elder Pliny
Andrew WilliamsRobert ArnottUnited Kingdom The Elder Pliny (c. AD 23/24–79) was a naturalist and naval commander in the Roman Principate. In addition to his civic and military duties, he spent much of his time investigating, studying, and writing on nature and geography, which he published in his Naturalis Historia. In a letter from the Younger…
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A personal memory of Davy Smyth Torrens
John Brock-UtneStanford, California, United States Davy Torrens was born in Northern Ireland in 1897 near Coleraine. His parents were farmers of Scottish stock. From the age of ten, he was seen to be a wizard in fixing all the wall clocks in the surrounding areas. Torrens did very well in school and won a scholarship…
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John Snow
JMS PearceHull, England John Snow (1813–1858) (Fig 1) was a pioneer of modern epidemiology who almost eradicated cholera from London when, before bacteria were discovered, he showed that cholera was a waterborne infection. His vital part in ether and chloroform anesthesia is often forgotten. And, as an accomplished physician, he wrote many clinical articles about…
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Boredom in hospitalized patients
Aditi MahajanSana RahmanWashington D.C., United States On my medical school psychiatry rotation, we were asked to see a patient who had many medical problems. After rounding on him for a week, we realized that he was suffering from sheer boredom. He was in a foreign country where nobody spoke his native language, had limited familial…
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Can a nurse ensure a legacy?
Karen EgenesCentennial, Colorado, United States The value of nurses is recognized most often during times of crisis, such as a pandemic or natural disaster. At other times, the work of nurses is unknown to the general public. Nurses who served in World War II describe their work in battle zones, then add the comment that…
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On eating the heart of the Sun King, Louis XIV
Since time immemorial it has been the custom of certain cultures to bury the heart of deceased kings or rulers separately from their body. This practice has spanned centuries and reflected a variety of different religious, political, and cultural beliefs. For example, ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the seat of the soul and placed…
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Mimetic medical terminologies inspired by the plant world
Saty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United States Plants have long inspired humans. Early natural scientists were struck by similarities between structural anatomy in animals and the botanical arrangements of plants. Bent tree trunks, spreading foliage, forested canopies, and curvaceous tendrils inspired them to draw artistic comparisons, both obvious and imagined, between plants and animals. Phenomenologists coined…
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Book review: A history of vaccines and anti-vaxxers
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Infectious diseases have been a scourge throughout human history. The first recorded epidemic was of the plague that occurred in Athens from 430–427 BC, chronicled in the writings of Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. In nineteenth-century Britain, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid, measles, smallpox, and cholera were major…