Jun 15, 2017 | Discoveries & Breakthroughs
Do you ever feel like you are going round in circles? Well, your blood is continuously going round in circles, in the pulmonary and systemic circulations. Less than 400 years ago, however, these life-giving, life-sustaining circles were not known about. The heart was...
May 9, 2017 | Discoveries & Breakthroughs
ECG interpretation has long been a guilty pleasure of mine. One of the first books I purchased as a medical student was the ‘ECG Made Easy’. After reading that book for the first time ECG interpretation seemed far from easy and I didn’t develop a strong grasp of...
Mar 27, 2017 | Medical Pioneers
I have been fascinated with the detective Sherlock Holmes since childhood. His almost supernatural powers of observation and deduction in stories such as ‘The Sign of the Four’, ‘The Speckled Band’, and ‘A Study in Scarlet’ captivated me and I have re-read them many...
Jan 30, 2017 | Plagues & Pathogens
In the summer of 2016, a 10-year-old Russian boy cut himself skinning a marmot whilst hunting with his grandfather in the remote Kosh-Agach region in the Atlai Mountains. A few days later he developed a fever and a flu-like illness and was taken to a local hospital....
Dec 31, 2016 | Medical Pioneers
The Greek physician, Claudius Galen, is considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of Medicine. Galen was the greatest physician of his era and was also a skilled surgeon and renowned philosopher. He was responsible for numerous advances in the...
Oct 31, 2016 | Plagues & Pathogens
In the summer of 1518 in the city of Strasbourg, Alsace, a woman by the name of Frau Troffea took to the streets and started to dance. She continued to dance day and night without stopping. No one knows why she started but within a few days others started to join in....
Sep 20, 2016 | Discoveries & Breakthroughs
No single piece of equipment is more synonymous with the medical profession than the stethoscope. I can vividly remember wearing my brand new Littmann stethoscope with pride on ward rounds as a medical student, desperately trying to discern diastolic murmurs and extra...
Jul 27, 2016 | Plagues & Pathogens
The Middle Ages are renowned for being a turbulent and difficult period of history. War, famine and disease occurred throughout the period and one of the most devastating pandemics in history, the Black Death, occurred in the mid 14th century. The Black Death was not...
Jun 28, 2016 | Plagues & Pathogens
The sixth century AD was a tumultuous period of human history. It marked the end of Classical Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Empires fell and new ones rose up to take their place. It was during this period that the legendary King Arthur is said to...
May 28, 2016 | Medical Pioneers
The ancient Egyptian civilisation was the first of the recorded great world civilisations. Little is known about the prehistoric societies that came before Egypt but it is assumed that they were steeped in superstition and that their ability to treat disease was...
