My first brush with the issue of humanity in medical field was when I read this quote, a few months back, put up by a prestigious international journal for an essay writing competition. As I read that quote, it stirred my conscience. And although I almost instantaneously quelled the desire to write on it, thinking my chances of winning an essay contest too slim to bother with, it set me thinkin...

Humanity is facing nearly insurmountable challenges, risks, and crises. Resource depletion, global pollution of the entire biosphere, and climate change due to our excessive and uncontrollably growing human population may be the most difficult long-term problems that urgently need to be solved. However, the current influenza pandemic and other unforeseen but inevitable health emergencies includ...

Despite its undoubted toxicity, arsenic is a much-used element, finding applications in agriculture, industry, and medicine. Arsenic as a poison has a prominent role in plays and novels as well as in real life. In medicine, arsenic was so widely used in the 19th century as a cure-all that it has been termed a “therapeutic mule.” Some arsenic compounds are still used in the treatment of parasiti...