Corpus - conversations about medicine and life

Laughter is the best medicine

18 December 2017 2 Comments

Liz Breslin

And, hot off the press, the scorching new wellness trend set to take 2018 by storm is – drumroll, please – choreographed group laughter.

I made that up, of course. It’s not nearly gobbledy-gooky enough to pass for a wellness trend. But it has been said since Proverbs 17:22 that laughter is the best medicine. Well, what Proverbs 17:22 actually says is:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.”

But ‘laughter is the best medicine’ has a better ring to it and it’s the sort of quasi-medical common sense that I’m absolutely inclined to believe.

In praise of Ronnie the nurse

18 December 2017 Leave a Comment

Peter Wells

She has a lived-in face and a voice which speaks of late night music and low lights, a soft husky catch of a voice which always has at its end the suggestion of a laugh. But she’s serious, on the level, is Ronnie.

What’s your level of pain, one to ten?”

Peter, you don’t have to be in pain. Right?”

How did I get here?

11 December 2017 Leave a Comment

Peter Wells

hospital bed — “How did I get here?” (image courtesy Peter Wells)

Author Peter Wells was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and has found posting on Facebook about his treatment makes the experience easier to bear. He says the writing helps him to sort out things in his mind – ‘a sort of mental housecleaning’ – and the response he gets to the posts makes him feel connected and less alone. ‘In fact,’ he says, ‘it has been remarkably therapeutic.’ Here is one of those posts:

At times I open my eyes and I’m surprised to find I’m in a hospital room. I look around me and adjust. It’s by no means painful or awkward now – it’s just a new kind of normal – and I ask myself how I ended up here.

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Acts of Kindness

11 December 2017 1 Comment

Barbara Brookes

Recently I visited the Foundling Museum, in Coram Fields, Bloomsbury, London. Near there, in 1989, my first son had played happily in Coram Fields, where no adults are allowed unless accompanied by children. Later, when my youngest son was around seven, I discovered Jamila Gavin’s Coram Boy, a gripping tale set in eighteenth century London and Gloucester, centered on the ‘Coram man’ who wanders the countryside glibly and deceivingly promising unwed mothers that he will deliver their babies to the Coram Foundling Hospital.

We read it together, hooked by the dark tale of cruelty to children and the boys that overcame their tragic beginnings.

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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.
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