Medicine
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Phineas Gage: An Accidental First in Neuroscience
On the afternoon of September 13, 1848 a foreman for the construction of the railroad in Cavendish, Vermont suffered one of the most noteworthy neurological accidents in history. Twenty six year old Phineas Gage, due to an unfortunate explosion, had an iron rod, a tamping iron used for blasting, shoot straight through his head. The odd and interesting aftermath was that Phineas showed no obvious signs of brain damage. He spoke coherently and his memory remained intact. His unusual case attracted the attention of doctors in the medical community who reported their observations and findings. Through accounts from those close to Phineas it was discovered that in fact there had…
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Jonas Salk’s 100th Birthday
The History of Polio is forever and inextricably linked with Jonas Salk . Salk’s eagerly anticipated achievement of inoculation against the much feared polio virus was made public on April 12, 1955 Not long after the announcement of the success of the Salk Vaccine , Jonas appeared in what would become a well-known television interview with Edward R. Murrow. When Murrow asked why he did not obtain a patent on his medical discovery, Salk famously said in response, “Would you patent the sun?” His response left the impression that it was a morally motivated decline on Salk’s part that resulted in an unpatented invention. But there are other details that point to the possibility of an altogether different reason having less to do with…
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Ebola Virus: One of Its Most Deadly Forms
The history of the Ebola virus is believed to date back to the beginning of our planet, though it was only first discovered in 1976. A clue that indicates an ancient origin is that the molecule’s genetic code is one of the most primitive and ancient having a single strand of RNA. The Hot Zone The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, upon careful DNA analysis, is determined to be of the most deadly of the Ebola viruses known as the Zaire strain. This version of the Ebola virus typically kills up to 80 percent of the victims it infects. The name is derived from the 1976 outbreak in northern Zaire; for the…
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The Bubonic Plague is Alive and Well
When we think of the plague, we imagine ages gone by, the middle ages in particular, safely contained inside the texts of detailed accounts in history books. Most of us don’t associate the plague with current times, but the truth is 10 to 20 people in the United States contract plague each year. In fact, infected mice from a lab in New Jersey escaped in 2005 and have never been found. In the news recently, we are warned of an increased risk of ancient diseases thawing back into existence; the Bubonic plague being one. An example is a 30,000 year old virus that has been brought back to life from its Siberian permafrost…
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The Black Death
Timeline 430 B.C.- During the second year of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides writes about a disease that is believed to have been the Plague 540 A.D.- An outbreak of Plague occurs at Pelusium, Egypt. 542 A.D.- Plague reaches Constantinople. 1334- Plague occurs in Constantinople 1339-1346- The famine occurs. This goes on for seven years and is known as “the famine before the plague.” 1347- The Black Plague began spreading through Western Europe Fall 1347- Reports of the plague are recorded in Alexandria, Cyprus, and Sicily. Winter 1347- Plague then reaches Italy. Jan. 1348- Next, the plague reaches France and Germany. 1349- 1/3 of the population in Western Europe was dead…