Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin rhinologist, was for many years Sigmund Freud’s closest friend and confidant. He was born in Poland in 1858. In 1887, he...
Winston Churchill was prime minister of the United Kingdom on two occasions: firstly from 1940 to 1945 and then from 1951 to 1955. He was...
Bringing light into darkness can also be a task for the physician. With the advent of endoscopy (initially by reflecting light into body cavities), new...
Poor working conditions, long hours, low pay - and the prospect of a dangerous and disfiguring osteonecrosis of the jaw. These were the triggers for...
Joseph‑Ignace Guillotin. The politician and physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) was so disgusted by brutal head and shoulder injuries sustained in ‘failed attempts’ by drunken axe-wielding...
“None of today’s young doctors can start to imagine the feeling of professional helplessness and despair that prevailed before the invention of the laryngeal mirror....
A legendary ‘parotid adenoma’: teaching aid or trophy? A wander through the glass cases of the newly refurbished Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of...
In Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, Timon urges prostitutes to spread syphilis throughout Athens. He implores the whores, Phrynia and Timandra, to: Consumptions* sow In hollow...
In the pre-antibiotic era, purulent otitis media often resulted in a permanent eardrum perforation with hearing loss. In addition to pig or fish bladders, eggshell...
The First World War marked a pivotal moment in the understanding and treatment of hearing loss and deafness. Prior to the war, deafness had been...
Ancient Indian medicine, as documented in the Sushruta Samhita, contains one of the earliest known references to nasal reconstruction, including surgical techniques still resembling modern...
Throughout his fiction and non-fiction, George Orwell incorporated references to olfaction to invoke strong reactions in his readers. For example, in Nineteen Eighty-Four the protagonist...