A Healing Passion
October 30, 2008 § 6 Comments
The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. Photo by Øystein Horgmo © All rights reserved.
This weekend I was visiting a friend in Glasgow and found the time to see the Hunterian Museum. It has a permanent exhibition called “A Healing Passion“, dedicated to the impact of Glasgow and Western Scotland on medicine. « Read the rest of this entry »
Triangulation
September 25, 2008 § 3 Comments
Alexis Carrel
The history of surgery is the history of great ideas and inventions. Ideas so outrageous, no one had dared to imagine them, before someone did. Like using a piece of intestine to replace a cancerous oesophagus. Inventions so ingenious in their simplicity, the rest of the surgical world must have gone “why didn’t I think of that”, when they were introduced.
One of the most brilliant inventions is, in my opinion, the triangulation method for suturing blood vessels. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Making of Modern Medicine
March 28, 2008 § Leave a comment
I’ve just finished listening to the BBC Radio series “The Making of Modern Medicine”. A total of 30 programmes about the development of medicine from the ancient Greece to the scientific medicine of today. « Read the rest of this entry »
Paean to the pean
March 14, 2008 § 8 Comments
Hemostat, artery forceps, hemostatic clamp, artery clamp – this beautiful surgical instrument has many names. In Scandinavia it’s simply called a “peang” (pronounced [piaŋ]). For a long time I’ve wondered why we call it that. Here’s the story. « Read the rest of this entry »
Medical mavericks
March 11, 2008 § 4 Comments
Last night I watched the first episode of the BBC miniseries “Medical mavericks” (photo credit). It tells the story of important breakthroughs in medical history by focusing on doctors and scientists that used themselves as guinea pigs. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Sterile Eye 