MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'historical'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:09:06 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008232&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2Fy36csy7Oqmg%2Fheigh_ho_heigh_ho_its_off_to_k.php As good news surfaces regarding a new (well, old) potential drug to help combat malaria--a drug already used to treat river blindness--KeithB and Phil Scheibel alerted me to another old malaria fighter featuring Dopey, Sneezy, and the whole gang: Other Disney disease-fighting videos include Water, Friend or Enemy, Insects as Carriers of Disease and Hookworm. A list of other wartime shorts is here. Read the comments on this post... (Source: Aetiology) Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008232 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0100 5008232 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4883611&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2FwzLiTpKkS04%2Fthe_epidemic_typhoid_at_cornel.php In the United States, we tend to take our clean drinking water for granted. Even though there are periodic concerns which bubble up about pharmaceuticals or other chemicals in our water supply, we typically believe--with good reason--that we have little to fear when it comes to contamination from microbes. Our drinking water, while far from perfect, is heads and shoulders above what it once was--something many of us forget or have never realized. There have been notable breakdowns, such as the 1993 outbreak of Cryptosporidium in Milwaukee that sickened over 400,000 individuals, but these days such events are few and far between. This hasn't always been the case. In the early 1900s, the safety of the water supply even in many large U.S cities wasn't monitored, and there were no standards ... Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4883611 Mon, 30 May 2011 15:00:00 +0100 4883611 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3969188&cid=t_105361_151_f&fid=35818&url=http%3A%2F%2Frecoveryissexy.com%2Fgod-as-we-understood-him%2F Bill W. Co-founder of AA Historical Roots of the Concept ‘Higher Power’. The basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous were worked out in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during what co-founder Bill W. often referred to as the Fellowship’s period of “trial and error.” The founding members had been using six steps borrowed from the Oxford Groups, where many of them started out. Bill felt that more specific instructions would be better, and in the course of writing A.A.’s basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous, he expanded them to twelve. But he was dealing with a group of newly sober drunks, and not surprisingly his new version met with spirited opposition. Even though the founding members were in many ways a homogeneous bunch (white, middle-class, almost exclusively male, and primarily... Recovery Is Sexy.com blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3969188 Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:12:01 +0100 3969188 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3723339&cid=t_105361_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2010%2F07%2F03%2Fhow-your-past-can-help-guide-your-future%2F “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana I believe that we humans spend a lot of time repeating our past — the mistakes, the patterns of behavior, the way we communicate with others. We’re creatures of habit and habits are hard to break. We believe, “Hey, this has worked for me in the past, so why not keep doing it?” Except that sometimes, we’re deluding ourselves. We think something has worked for us in the past, when in fact, it hasn’t at all. We believe our style of communication is effective with our partner, when all the while our partner sits there and wonders what the hell it is we’re thinking. History can be a great teacher and source of wisdom. This is true of history in the traditiona... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3723339 Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:10:21 +0100 3723339 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3487284&cid=t_105361_131_f&fid=34995&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.discovermagazine.com%2Fgnxp%2F2010%2F04%2Fof-pigs-people%2F Jared Diamond famously argued in Guns, Germs and Steel that only a small set of organisms have the characteristics which make them viable domesticates. Diamond’s thesis is that the distribution of these organisms congenial to a mutualistic relationship with man shaped the arc of our species’ history and the variation in wealth that we see (though his a human-centric tale, we may enslave them, eat and use them as beasts of burden, but these are also species which have spread across the world with our expansion). This thesis has been challenged, but the bigger point of putting a focus on how humans relate to their domesticated animals, and the complex co-evolutionary path between the two, is something that we need to consider. In a plain biological and physical sense animals have... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3487284 Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:25:50 +0100 3487284 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3420674&cid=t_105361_131_f&fid=34995&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Fgnxp%2F%7E3%2F0-5hB0p-XtA%2F The following passage is from the epilogue of The Real Eve: Modern Man’s Journey Out of Africa by Stephen Oppenheimer: In this book I have offered a synthesis of genetic and other evidence. Everything points to a single southern exodus from Eritrea to the Yemen, and to all the non-African male and female gene lines having arisen from their respective single out-of-Africa founder lines in South Asian (or at least near the southern exit). I regard the genetic logic for this synthesis as a solid foundation, and I have based the rest of my reconstruction of the human diaspora upon it. Obviously, the ‘choice’ of starting point (mine or theirs) determined all the subsequent routes our ancestors and cousins took. Tracing the onward trails is only possible as a result of marked s... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3420674 Sun, 28 Mar 2010 07:15:38 +0100 3420674 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3292023&cid=t_105361_151_f&fid=35818&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FRecoveryIsSexycom%2F%7E3%2Fadx1ousAgSM%2F Bill W. Co-founder of AA Historical Roots of the Concept ‘Higher Power’. The basic principles of Alcoholics Anonymous were worked out in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during what co-founder Bill W. often referred to as the Fellowship’s period of “trial and error.” The founding members had been using six steps borrowed from the Oxford Groups, where many of them started out. Bill felt that more specific instructions would be better, and in the course of writing A.A.’s basic text, Alcoholics Anonymous, he expanded them to twelve. But he was dealing with a group of newly sober drunks, and not surprisingly his new version met with spirited opposition. Even though the founding members were in many ways a homogeneous bunch (white, middle-class, almost exclusively male, and primarily... Recovery Is Sexy.com blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3292023 Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:44:00 +0100 3292023 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3290827&cid=t_105361_107_f&fid=34860&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corporeality.net%2Fmuseion%2F2010%2F02%2F20%2Fusing-the-rete-list-for-collective-curating-online%2F Recently I announced a quiz to get more information about a historical syringe that a couple of friends had bought for me. This quiz was far from easy since we had no information on the syringe whatsoever. Medical Museion’s guest researcher and former chief physician Sven Erik Hansen was the first to make a suggestion on our Danish blog — he thought it might had been be used to treat haemorrhoids. Sven Erik’s was a qualified guess, but it seems like the area of expertise that we are dealing with here is rather odontology. Thomas put a query about the syringe on rete, the mailing list for curators, historians, students, collectors, dealers, etc, interested in the history of scientific instruments, and immediately received some very interesting answers. Fi... Biomedicine on Display blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3290827 Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:00:44 +0100 3290827 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3146027&cid=t_105361_109_f&fid=34750&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpsychcentral.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2010%2F01%2F05%2Fwomens-sexuality-and-g-spot-research%2F I’m not exactly sure what it is about our fascination about women’s sexuality. Perhaps it’s as simple as because women’s sexual reproductive organs are mostly on the inside and men’s are mostly on the outside that researchers seem forever fascinated by female sexuality. I was honestly debating as to whether to comment on the recent media hype about new research which, according to media reports, claims that the “g spot” in female sexuality may be a myth. Why was I not going to write on this topic? Because after reading the “research” that was conducted, I was mystified how this research even got published in a peer-reviewed journal. The researchers didn’t actually study whether pairs of female identical and fraternal twins had th... World of Psychology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3146027 Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:10:52 +0100 3146027 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3067240&cid=t_105361_131_f&fid=34994&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnxp.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F12%2Froman-britain-to-anglo-saxon-britain.php Peter Frost on Roman Britain:Historians often assume that the Romans changed Britain politically but not demographically. The indigenous elites adopted Roman culture while the mass of the population remained Celtic. When the Anglo-Saxons arrived in the fifth century, much of this population fled to Wales and Cornwall, where they would retain their language and traditions. Meanwhile, those who remained behind were obliterated through a process of ethnic cleansing and coerced assimilation.This historical account may be false.......Once Rome had pulled its troops out of Britain in the early 5th century, there was no longer an inflow of people to offset the demographic deficit. The local population fell into decline, and the decline accelerated in the 6th century when plagues killed three out ... Gene Expression blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3067240 Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:11:00 +0100 3067240 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=3106755&cid=t_105361_107_f&fid=35026&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FTheTreeOfLife%2F%7E3%2FtVbSLFRZhgM%2Ffor-sake-bentham-open-journals-leave-me.html For crying out loud, I am still getting crappy spammy mail from various "Bentham Open" journals. The most annoying part to me of Bentham Open is that they try to make it seem that anything published in an Open Access journal is better than anything published in a non Open Access journal. While I personally believe publishing in an OA manner is great, lying about the benefits of OA is not a good thing.For example they ask and answer the following question "WHY PUBLISH IN OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS? " Their answers include:Your article will obtain more citations.Your article will be peer-reviewed and published very fast.Your article can be read by potentially millions of readers, which is incomparable to publishing in a traditional subscription journal. All published open access articles wil... The Tree of Life blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=3106755 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:01:32 +0100 3106755 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2948308&cid=t_105361_87_f&fid=36050&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blisstree.com%2Fbreastfeeding123%2Fthe-wet-nurses-tale-book-discussion%2F Join the on-line book discussion of The Wet Nurse’s Tale! Elita at Blacktating first posted a very interesting interview with the author Erica Eisdorfer and then reviewed the book. Now the book has been released and Tanya at the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog has suggested an on-line discussion group. I have put a hold on the book at one of my county libraries (25 cents gets it shipped to my local branch!) and I can hardly wait to get started reading next week. The timing is good because I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (quite a dense and informative read — one worth plowing through. Oh, did I just go with the farming pun? ) The Wet Nurse’s Tale is a historical novel set in Victorian England and it features a ... Breastfeeding 1-2-3 blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2948308 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:42:49 +0100 2948308 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2441457&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=35344&url=http%3A%2F%2Fzackarysholemberger.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F05%2Fsuper-jewish-historical-prediction-game.html I. circa 1980Cathy Conservative: Women can be rabbis!Joe Modern Orthodox: Pshaw!II. 2009Joe Modern Orthodox: Women can...umm...kinda be rabbis!III. 2025Joe M.O.: ___________ (fill in the blank) (Source: Zackary Sholem Berger) Zackary Sholem Berger blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2441457 Thu, 21 May 2009 17:14:00 +0100 2441457 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=2167719&cid=t_105361_107_f&fid=35026&url=http%3A%2F%2Fphylogenomics.blogspot.com%2F2009%2F02%2Fopen-evolution-kudos-to-smbe-for.html Another sign that Open Access is spreading.  SMBE, which publishes the journal MBE (Molecular Biology and Evolution) is announcing the creation of a new journal - Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE).  And happily it will be an Open Access journal being published by Oxford under the Oxford Open system (not quite a full creative commons license like PLoS journals, but pretty good).  I am VERY pleased to see this, especially since I quit the Editorial Board at MBE mostly because they were not moving fast enough to Open Access for me.  Kudos to SMBE, Bill Martin (the new Editor in Chief of GBE) and all the folks at Oxford for doing a good thing.This is from the "Tree of Life" blog ( http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com ) of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate at... The Tree of Life blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=2167719 Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:15:00 +0100 2167719 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=908467&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2F161991125%2Ftwelve_diseases_that_changed_o.php I asked yesterday what readers considered the most important diseases in history. This was prompted by a new ASM Press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World, written by Irwin Sherman. As I mentioned, Sherman included many diseases readers expected--plague, cholera, tuberculosis, smallpox, syphilis, malaria, influenza, yellow fever, and AIDS. He didn't include a few that popped up repeatedly in the comments--leprosy, measles, and typhoid (or typhus, for that matter). While I think a study of these could have been illuminating (especially leprosy, since much of the stigma attached to that disease still resonates even in modern society), Sherman notes than an exhaustive study of diseases would have been "mind-numbing," and that wasn't his goal in writing the book. Rather, the book is... Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=908467 Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:30:00 +0100 908467 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=905997&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2F161515393%2Fwhat_have_been_the_most_signif.php I'll have a review up tomorrow of a new ASM press book, Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World. However, I'm interested first in what readers would nominate as the most important diseases in history. Sure, some are "gimmies," but the author, Irwin Sherman, makes a few choices I'd not have considered. What would you include on your list? Read the comments on this post... (Source: Aetiology) Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=905997 Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:00:00 +0100 905997 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=801402&cid=t_105361_135_f&fid=35263&url=http%3A%2F%2Fronhudson.blogspot.com%2F2007%2F08%2Fblast-from-1960s-mrs-miller-sings.html It is time for a little levity. I have been hoping for this day for a long, long time. I finally found Mrs. Miller on Youtube and have to share her particular style and pizazz with you.For those of you who are not aware of Mrs. Miller's stellar career, just know that she had one. Have a look at these videos of her performances of Petula Clark's "My Love", the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night", and Nancy Sinatra'a "These Boots Are Made for Walking". First, though, there is "It's Magic" from the film, The Cool Ones(95 min, color - 1967 - Warner Bros. Starring: Roddy McDowall, Debbie Watson, Gil Peterson, Mrs. Miller, Glenn Campbell Directed by: Gene Nelson).The second of these clips is from a very talented lip-syncher, Marc Torringa, from the Netherlands. Notice how difficult it must be to keep li... 2sides2ron blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=801402 Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:09:00 +0100 801402 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=611218&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2F115604053%2Fcanadas_tb_legacy.php Last month I noted the story of Robert Daniels, a patient with drug-resistant tuberculosis who's been held in isolation in Arizona in order to prevent spread of the deadly pathogen. While some patient's rights advocates have been outraged, Mr. Daniels' treatment pales in comparison to what Mona at Science Notes writes about: News has broken that the Canadian government continued to require Native Canadian children to attend residential schools where they could learn "civilized," Christian, European ways, for years after they knew that tuberculosis was rampant in those schools, and they continued to house sick and well children together. So the healthy children caught tuberculosis from the sick ones and spread it back to their communities--and we didn't prevent it. We made it happen! Nobo... Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=611218 Thu, 10 May 2007 13:30:00 +0100 611218 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=518348&cid=t_105361_99_f&fid=34589&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2F%7Er%2Fscienceblogs%2Faetiology%2F%7E3%2F106346506%2Fyes_the_government_can_still_e.php I've given a few talks recently on pandemic influenza. This topic of isolation and/or quarantine hasn't come up frequently during the question-and-answer period, but almost every time I've had someone approach me after the talk to ask about it (since I mention it briefly during the presentation). It seems to be something that really concerns people, and it's a difficult topic. No one wants someone out spreading a deadly disease that could kill you or your loved ones, but at the same time, no one wants to be locked away from their loved ones if they're potentially dying from a deadly disease, either. It's a difficult scenario and there are no easy solutions. However, it's my impression that the general public probably hasn't been exposed to this potential controversy very frequently, so I ... Aetiology blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=518348 Tue, 03 Apr 2007 17:30:00 +0100 518348 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=487648&cid=t_105361_133_f&fid=35092&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autistics.org%2Fdemonized%2F%3Fp%3D17 Someone sent me a used copy of Portia Iversen’s Strange Son on CD. I only just got through the first track, and this is what I heard: It was his mind they came for. They came to steal his mind. Before anyone gave it a name, even before I knew what it was, I knew it was in our house. I can’t say exactly how I knew, except that I could feel it. Not that I wanted to, believe me. They were very very dark things and there was no way to get rid of them. Sometimes I could hear them late at night when the house was very quiet. A creaking sound, an inexplicable hiss, a miniscule pop, a whistle out of nowhere. And when I closed my eyes, I felt their shadows passing over me as they floated through the house and drifted invisibly with the smoke of the fireplace chimney out into space back to G... Autism Demonized blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=487648 Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:22:34 +0100 487648 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=487656&cid=t_105361_133_f&fid=35092&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autistics.org%2Fdemonized%2F%3Fp%3D8 Excerpts from Autism Research: A Legacy of Neglect, an Opportunity for New Discovery by Jonathan Shestack, co-founder and president of Cure Autism Now. No formula can tell me: Will he be whole or will he be mysteriously, tragically broken like his older brother? The brother who hardly seems to know he exists. The brother who has autism. … This is the special curse of autism. You have your child, and yet you don’t have him. You have a shell, a ghost of all the dreams and hopes you ever had. … No matter how much time goes by, we never quite get over it, we never get used to it. Every lost tooth, every birthday, is a reminder that all too soon the autistic child will become the autistic adult, and the moment of opportunity may be lost. So autism is a state of being “my... Autism Demonized blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=487656 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:43:00 +0100 487656