Our local newspaper recently printed a cartoon in which one teenage female character asked her young adult brother why he's glum and he responds ―It's nuthin'.‖ In the next frame, with only his laconic answer to go on, she summarizes his current career, social and romantic woes. In the final frame, he asks ―How do you DO that?‖ to which she responds with a shrug, ―I'm female.‖ The funny pages a...

Let us emancipate the student, and give him time and opportunity for the cultivation of his mind, so that in his pupilage he shall not be a puppet in the hands of others, but rather a self-relying and refl ective being. —Sir William Osler, Aphorisms from His Bedside Teachings and Writings R ecent studies involving physicians in training have shown that excessive work hours are associated with a...

Gregory House, M.D., stated in one of his memorable if misanthropic aphorisms, that patients lie. “I don’t ask why patients lie, I just assume they all do” (Moran & Spicer, 2004). This is true. On the other hand, the patient, like the customer, is always right. This is also true. Reconciliation of these aphorisms leads us some way to understanding the art of medicine and the tribulations of pal...

The author's account of the gestation of this book will ring bells for many readers. Stimulated by an interest in speech disorder and the modem practice of speech therapy, he looked for theoretical beginnings in the seventeenth century. This led to his questioning the assumption that nothing "useful" existed before then. Once he found the early modem precursors themselves had a mass of precurso...

This year the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) is celebrating a most important birthday, its 100th. Interestingly, the discipline of virology is also 100 years old; for it was also in the last decade of the 19th century, in 1898, that Beijerink coined the term “virus” (Latin, poison) to denote infectious agents not retained by filters capable of retaining bacteria and characterized virus...

TODAY it is my privilege to address you on behalf of my colleagues on the medical staff of the Royal. The giving of an oration, as it is now called, at the beginning of the winter term, is sanctified by a tradition extending backward in time for more than 150 years. It is customary to welcome, in particular, those of you who have recently begun their clinical studies, and this I do with great p...

Finally, just over halfway through the book, issues that concern lower-income countries are addressed. After placing the public health of developing countries in historical context, Berridge describes the complex health burden that these countries have today – both communicable diseases, in areas where health coverage and access to health technologies are neglected, and non-communicable disease...

During the Annual History of Science Society 2013 meeting, a round table on social media, ‘The Pleasures and Dangers of Social Media’, was organised as a part of a continuing conversation about the role that social media plays in providing leads for research, in constructing course syllabi, and even for opening conversations about the role of archives in historical research and what that could ...