Corpus - conversations about medicine and life

Sugar: “the most pleasant, salubrious, and useful vegetable to mankind”

11 December 2017 1 Comment

Sue Wootton

In 1752, the London-based Gentleman’s Magazine published a review of an essay on sugar. The essay contained reports drawn from the Transactions of the Royal Society, and proved, concluded the reviewer, that sugar is “the most pleasant, salubrious, and useful vegetable to mankind.”

He went on:

A Dr Slare … relates that his Grandfather, who was a great eater of sugar, had all his teeth in his mouth at 80, strong and firm; never had any pains or soreness in his gums or teeth, which in 3 years came out, and he had a new set; and his hair grew darker, and he continued in health and strength till 100. The Great Duke of Beaufort, who died in 1702 aged 80, used to eat a pound of sugar daily. Being opened his viscera were as sound as a person of 20; never troubled with coughs, and had his teeth firm; his housekeeper gave this as a reason:

‘That which preserves apples and plums
will also preserve life and lungs.'”

“A Prescription for Action”

4 December 2017 1 Comment

Tree Cocks

A Prescription for Action: The Life of Dr Janet Irwin by Susan Currie tells the fascinating life story of New Zealand born and trained Janet Irwin, medical doctor and social activist.

Born in 1923, Janet’s childhood in the Hokianga was free-ranging, but not without significant challenges, which may have influenced her subsequent interests in medicine. From her mother, Lucy, Janet inherited a voracious appetite for reading. Her father, “Doc Smith” (or “GM” as he was also known) was a legendary and revered doctor in the Hokianga in the early part of the twentieth century, when life there was remote and co-operation arose out of shared hardship. He had come from a farming background in Scotland and, like other early settlers in the area, he could be described as having been “successful in villainy, public service and philanthropy”: he was not above breaking the law in pursuit of what he considered the greater good. He was also charming, warm and empathetic, characteristics shared by his daughter. GM was an iconoclast, as was Janet, who had the gift of forcefully challenging ideas without creating offense.
[Read more…] about “A Prescription for Action”

Anton Chekhov: a compassionate diagnostician

4 December 2017 2 Comments

Sue Wootton

Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was born in Taganrog, Russia and entered medical school in Moscow aged nineteen. While he was training as a doctor, he wrote humorous articles for weekly journals so that he could help financially support his parents and younger siblings. Increasingly he was drawn to writing serious drama and fiction. He is renowned as a master short story writer and playwright, whose fiction and drama explored the complexities of character and the often hidden depths of meaning in life. Chekhov practised as a medical doctor throughout his life, dying from tuberculosis aged 44.

What made Chekhov’s writing so powerful? Rosamund Bartlett, in her introduction to Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters, considers that his appeal was partly “his lack of pretentiousness”, largely, she considers, a result of the “practical, down-to-earth objectivity Chekhov acquired in his medical training”. [Read more…] about Anton Chekhov: a compassionate diagnostician

Bibliotherapy: a cure for bigotry?

4 December 2017 1 Comment

Sue Wootton

Bibliotherapy is the treatment of ills and ailments by reading. The term was coined in a satiric article called “A Literary Clinic” published in 1916 in The Atlantic Monthly. Written by the American essayist and Unitarian minister Samuel McChord Crothers, it described an imaginary ‘bibliopathic institute’ run by one Dr Bagster, a gentleman to whom “nothing human was foreign”. Among other conditions, Dr Bagster is committed to treating bigotry in all its forms.

The sign on the door of Dr Bagster’s clinic reads:

Bibliopathic Institute. Book Treatment by Competent Specialists. Dr. Bagster meets patients by appointment. Free Clinic 2-4 P.M. Outpatients looked after in their homes by members of the Social Service Department. Young People’s Lend-a-Thought Club every Sunday evening at 7.30. Tired Business Men in classes. Tired Business Men’s tired wives given individual treatment. Tired mothers who are reading for health may leave their children in the Day Nursery.”

“When the body shrinks, the spirit grows”

27 November 2017 2 Comments

Jan FitzGerald

I fell into becoming a professional caregiver after caring 24/7 for a terminally ill husband with a brain tumour. Needing to pay funeral expenses, all savings exhausted in the fight for his life, I was weary of having been turned down for jobs as “too qualified” and so settled for $9.50 an hour in a private hospital/rest home, where I worked as many shifts as I could. On account of age and life experience (having had three children and nursed ailing elderly parents and husband), my roster was soon changed from downstairs Rest Home to upstairs Palliative Care.

I felt very comfortable there. There is an honesty of heart shared by poets and the terminally ill. Words and emotions are not wasted. Often, as a qualified grief counsellor, I was asked to stay behind after a death on the shift to “talk with family,” but I think the best contribution I made was to listen. Really listen.

There is nothing wrong with this lady’s head (it’s official)

27 November 2017 1 Comment

Liz Breslin

A year almost to the day from getting concussed and it seems safe enough to talk about it in the past tense. “She was SO WEIRD. Like she’d ask things and ask them again, like, all the time.” So say the kids to visitors over the dinner table.

“You were so weird, like you were there but nothing joined up inside.” So say friends at work, who I thought I’d done a good enough job fooling. Head up, eyes down, go straight, smile. I was so weird. Weird. Wired. Rewired. Caged in on autopilot. Wouldn’t be told or slowed; wouldn’t sit; so, so tired.