tapered or squared? Should the ears be covered? Should the top be just trimmed or shortened? Most barbers only ask a few questions. Often, they assume one of a few standard models of the customer’s hairstyle and pursue this model until they are given directions to the contrary. Given no direction, they still give a haircut. Even with directions, they must make numerous, perhaps hundreds, of int...

Barberos, cirujanos, y gente de mar is a comprehensive examination of naval sanitary policies and their impact on the process of professionalization of the medical practitioners working for the navy during the eighteenth century. It covers the period from the end of the War of Succession to the defeat of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805-the beginning of the decline of Spanish naval...

J ohn Snow's accomplishments in medicine, anesthesia, and epidemiology constituted an achievement that changed the face of medical practice. He conducted translational research in his home laboratory that enabled him to understand the mechanisms of vaporizing volatile anesthetic agents—ether and chloroform—so that safe delivery systems of anesthesia could be designed. He brought obstetric anest...

de Le6n and the Basque novelist and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno figure prominently, and a fondness in Spanish historiography for local studies have led to the production of a number of works on Salamanca and its university. None of these has dealt in any detail with the hospital attached to the university, a void which Teresa Santander has sought to fill. The result is mainly a compilation of...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major cause of severe liver diseases including fibrosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cirrhosis related end stage liver diseases (ESLD) in mankind. It is a common belief that infectious diseases have historically been responsible for the massiveness of war-related deaths, so the aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of HBV infec...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B and C is a common global health problem and is spreading rapidly in developing countries due to lack of health education, poverty and illiteracy. Both of these infections can be transmitted through blood or body fluids, tattooing, through infected instruments, unsafe shave by barbers and sexual contact. Medical personnel are most exposed to these infections. There should ...

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GEORGE ELIOT wrote that "about the year 1829 the dark territories of pathology were a fine America for a spirited young adventurer." The adventurer was Lydgate, who had preferred Rasselas or Gulliver to the Bible or Bayle's dictionary until he discovered the medical profession, "the finest in the world, presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art, offering the most direct al...

THE RELATIONSHIP between physicians and surgeons was of fundamental concern to the medical profession in the sixteenth century as in other periods. The superior position enjoyed by the physicians has long been recognized. It was they who controlled medical education in the universities, and, to a considerable extent, medical practice in the towns. Their training, which in Italy included up to e...