A new look at the role of urinalysis in the history of diagnostic medicine.
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Before this century, urine was the predominant body fluid used by the physician for diagnosis and prognosis. Uroscopy, or urinalysis by the senses, has usually been treated disparagingly in historical accounts of diagnostic medicine. Although uroscopy was at times used fraudulently, the thoughtful use of urinalysis was probably an important part of diagnosis for the physician, even before the chemical analysis of urine. (+info)
Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt: the third day hypothesis.
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An autopsy was an important event in 17th century Holland. Autopsies were held in an 'anatomy theater' and performed according to a fixed protocol that often took up to 3 days to complete. Of the five group portraits painted by Rembrandt over the course of his career, two were anatomy lessons given by Dr. Tulp and Dr. Deyman. An examination of Rembrandt's painting Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson (1632) and an X-ray image of the painting, as compared to other paintings of anatomy lessons from the same period, reveal interesting differences, such as positioning, and light and shadow. Not only was the autopsy not performed according to the usual protocol, but in this painting Rembrandt created a unique dramatic scene in his effort to tell a story. We suggest that Dr. Tulp and Rembrandt "modified" the painting of Dr. Tulp's anatomy lesson to emphasize Dr. Tulp's position as the greatest anatomist of his era--"Vesalius of Amsterdam," and as a way of demonstrating God's greatness by highlighting the hand as a symbol of the most glorious of God's creations. (+info)
Political gout: dissolute patients, deceitful physicians, and other blue devils.
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This essay seeks to assess the renegade Thomas Beddoes through the filter of the gout diagnosis in his time. It stretches out to cover his whole life and emphasizes the need for a broad comparative historical and biographical approach. Gout is shown to have functioned then as more than a malady; it was also part of a social code embedding class, rank, affiliation, standing and political position. (+info)
Thomas Beddoes and the German psychological tradition.
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This paper considers Thomas Beddoes's role in disseminating German psychological ideas in Britain. It describes the German tradition as inaugurated by Karl Philipp Moritz (1756-93) and considers the chief differences between this tradition and the English one stemming from David Hartley. It is suggested that Beddoes found strong support for his convictions about human interiority in writings by Moritz and his followers. In particular, these enabled him to think about sanity and madness as being continuous with one another (rather than as one another's negation); they helped him locate the signs of madness in ordinary childhood behaviours; they reinforced his suspicions that many so-called nervous disorders were psychically caused; and they supplied him with a conception of unconscious passion. The paper concludes by considering Beddoes's appeal to Shakespeare's plays as a source of clinical knowledge about the nature of insanity, and argues that Beddoes has been overlooked as a crucial source for nineteenth-century psychiatrist-bardologists such as J. Conolly, J. C. Bucknill and H. Maudsley. (+info)
From congenital to idiopathic adult hydrocephalus: a historical research.
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The plague of the Philistines and other pestilences in the Ancient World: exploring relations between the religious-literary tradition, artistic evidence and scientific proof.
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In ancient times the term pestilence referred not only to infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis, but also to several different epidemics. We explore the relations between references in the Bible and recent scientific evidence concerning some infectious diseases, especially the so-called Plague of the Philistines and leprosy. In addition, some considerations regarding possible connections among likely infectious epidemic diseases and the Ten Plagues of Egypt are reported. Evidence suggesting the presence of the rat in the Nile Valley in the II millennium BC is shown; a possible role of the rat in the plague spreading already in this historical period should be confirmed by these data. While the biblical tale in the Book of Samuel may well report an epidemic event resembling the plague, as to date this infectious disease remains unknown, it is not conceivable to confirm the presence of leprosy in the same age, because the little palaeopathologic evidence of the latter disease, in the geographic area corresponding to Egypt and Palestine, is late, dating back only to the II century AD. (+info)
The treachery of images: how Rene Magritte informs medical education.
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