Corpus - conversations about medicine and life

‘Primary Care’: changing values on display

23 July 2018 Leave a Comment

Andrea Bell

Hocken Primary Care Robin White — Robin White in ‘Primary Care’ exhibition, image courtesy of Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago. Photo: Iain Frengley.

Primary Care is an exhibition currently showing at the Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena (Dunedin, New Zealand). It brings together a selection of artworks, photographs, ephemera and archival materials to consider aspects of physical, spiritual, community, mental and public health. The exhibition represents a range of approaches to health and wellbeing, and traces the history of developments in the medical field. It includes items relating to health promotion and disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment, patient education, deinstitutionalisation, community care and Māori health.

Among the work on display is one of Dunedin Public Hospital’s most treasured artworks, borrowed for the exhibition: ‘Your Health is Your Wealth’ by Dame Robin White. [Read more…] about ‘Primary Care’: changing values on display

On the frankincense trail

23 July 2018 4 Comments

Sandra Arnold

Five thousand years ago Oman was the centre of the world’s frankincense trade. Frankincense was traditionally burned at funerals and to repel malaria-bearing mosquitoes in the coastal regions. Other uses included the treatment of wounds, nausea, blood pressure, fever and inflammation. It was in great demand by the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Israelites for their religious ceremonies. A whole year’s supply was burned at the funeral of Nero’s wife. As one of the gifts to the Christ child, frankincense was considered more valuable than gold. To transport frankincense across the desert, camels were domesticated in southern Arabia. At least one of the Magi is said to have started his journey to Bethlehem from southern Oman.

The Frankincense Souk in Salalah is reputed to be the best place to buy frankincense in the whole of Arabia. The Souk was our first stop on the frankincense trail when we lived in Oman in 2004. White smoke spiralled from little clay burners on the stalls of the Souk, mingling with the scent of jasmine and sandalwood. I was transported in a second to The Arabian Nights of my childhood imagination.

The history of loneliness

23 July 2018 4 Comments

Barbara Brookes

When I saw a book entitled A History of Loneliness I immediately had to buy it – imagining the way social interaction had changed over time might be revealed to me. It was, of course, Irish author John Boyne’s novel, a sensitive and compelling exploration of Irish priesthood that enlarged my understanding.

I have thought about loneliness most often in relation to the history of early women doctors. The Alexander Turnbull Library holds a wonderful collection of letters of women who trained in medicine in Edinburgh in the 1890s. The letters were carefully preserved by Dr Agnes Bennett who practiced in Wellington from 1905 until 1936, with interruption for distinguished service in the first world war. Those letters led me to write about the ‘corresponding community’ the women created in order to continue the companionship they had so enjoyed at the Edinburgh Medical College for Women. The letters enabled them to maintain the sorority they had established as they embarked on their often lonely careers. Early women doctors were often exiles from the communities in which they were raised and from those in which they ended up practicing. Their male colleagues rarely welcomed them and as single women they were treated by suspicion by the wives of male colleagues.

Unity music

16 July 2018 1 Comment

Alison Denham

Eric Dozier, supreme musician and cultural activist, is a force to be reckoned with. His singing workshop in the southern New Zealand city of Dunedin over the weekend 12-15 July will be treasured for ever by Dunedin Community choir members and leaders, and those who came simply because they love to sing.

All of us – soaring sopranos, edgy altos, bluesy tenors and down and dirty bases – experienced such elation, and also intense moments of sadness, through the music and through the stories and teachings of this man.

Raised in a little town called Bakewell in Tennessee, Eric Dozier was immersed in gospel music through his family life, playing the piano in his local church at the age of five. Many of his extended family members and cousins sang, and the stories behind those songs are in his bones. Eric became involved in a programme helping young people to express themselves through music and drama. Following that, he became active in Unity Youth Choir, believing absolutely in music’s ability to unite the people of the world, one song at a time.

[Read more…] about Unity music

Does yoga support social justice for women?

16 July 2018 1 Comment

Nicola Wilson-Jones

The popularity of yoga has blossomed since Swami Vivekananda introduced its philosophy to the West in the late 19th century. Western women have led the charge toward mainstreaming the practice of yoga, women making up, on average, 80–90% of most yoga classes. It is very rare to observe more than fifty percent men attending. In India, however, the opposite situation prevails. As Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi say in their 2015 book Super Genes: The Hidden Key to Total Well-being:

Ironically, the practice is taken up mostly by men in India and mostly by women in this country [USA]. In India, the pursuit of higher consciousness is open to everyone in theory, but in practice women have been excluded.”

Because women in the West support yoga as an industry, it is worth asking if yoga’s ideology supports and enables women. Does yoga culture reinforce the objectivisation of women? Does it entrench an expectation that women be primarily maternal beings? Are we advocating for the empowerment of women who live and work in the Indian ashrams and temples? Do we gain purchase from our victim status, or do we choose to be self-determined, self-articulated and self-governed? Ahimsa (to do no harm) is one of the cornerstones of yoga, but are we inadvertently supporting violence against women? [Read more…] about Does yoga support social justice for women?

A little book with big feathers: “Poems for a World Gone to Sh*t”

16 July 2018 Leave a Comment

Sue Wootton

‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul – ” Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

I was browsing in the bookshop, and a book flew into my hands. It was called Poems for a World Gone to Sh*t.

A “world gone to sh*t” – that seems a fair diagnosis of the current age. And who can say they’re not to some degree infected by the hopelessness this tends to engender? It’s a widespread general malaise. But here in the bookshop this bold wee book fluttered in my palms. I opened it, and read the epigraph by Oscar Wilde:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

It was my first inkling of why Poems for a World Gone to Sh*t had flown so urgently out of the shelves. It’s that fully-feathered thing, a book of hope. It deserves a perch in every human soul.