Category: History
Halsted: The Father of Science-Based Surgery
One (dark and stormy?) night in 1882, a critically ill 70 year old woman was at the verge of death at her daughter’s home, suffering from fever, crippling pain, nausea, and an inflamed abdominal mass. At 2 AM, a courageous surgeon put her on the kitchen table and performed the first known operation to remove gallstones. The patient recovered uneventfully. The patient...
Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology
In 1925, Francis Peabody famously said “The secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.” A new book by Norman Makous, MD, a cardiologist who has practiced for 60 years, is a cogent reminder of that principle. In Time to Care: Personal Medicine in the Age of Technology, Dr. Makous tackles a big subject. He attempts to...
The Mythology of Larry Dossey
A “Double Standard”? Last week I had planned to write a comprehensive critique of a recent comment by Larry Dossey. He had posted it on Val Jones’s betterhealth website in response to Dr. Val’s essay, “The Decade’s Top 5 Threats To Science In Medicine,” originally posted here on SBM. Much of what Dr. Val had identified as the top threats involved recent...
CFS: Viral vs somatization
If the association is confirmed, the finding will have near-revolutionary implications for our understanding disease – particularly infectious disease. If there is a confirmed model for such a vague set of symptoms signifying some occult infection limited to immune cells, which produces no repeatable cellular or antibody abnormality, no susceptibility to other infections (such as with HIV) and in which the sites...
Sectarian Insertions
I will write occasional posts instead of being on a regular schedule. The reasons: There are more contributors than positions. Newer people to the field have more ambition and belly fire. I have a number of projects and papers to finish in increasingly limited time and decreasing efficiency. So have at it. Meanwhile, some non-random thoughts. I am as concerned with social...
Oriental Medicine or Medical Orientalism?
The following is the second adapted excerpt of an upcoming article called “The Untold Story of Acupuncture.” It is scheduled to be published in December 2009 in Focus in Alternative and Complementary Therapies (FACT), a review journal that presents the evidence on alternative medicine in an analytical and impartial manner. This section argues that the current flurry of interest in acupuncture and...
James Reston’s Tooth of Gold
One of the fathers of critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, the French philosopher Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) recounts in 1687 in his Histoire des oracles–a debunking book on popular beliefs, myths and superstitions that caused tremendous stir in theological and philosophical circles of his time–a colorful story that could very well illustrate the flurry of interest and research in acupuncture...
Acupuncture is astrology with needles
A guest post that demonstrates that acupuncture and astrology have a lot of things in common.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Not every post will be an in-depth, authoritative review of a topic like yesterday’s on Dr. Sears. A change of pace can be nice, and I have always liked history. JAMA likes to run articles called “JAMA 100 YEARS AGO” and the reprint from the July 24, 1909 issue is interesting. It...