Voltaire said that Archimedes had more imagination than Homer. Unfortunately, as far as we know, Archimedes’s only use of it, outside of mathematics, was to condemn goldsmiths and to kill people. More peaceful uses of mathematicians’ imagination, to the outside of mathematics, in decreasing order of impact, were provided by Multi-Millionaire Richard Garfield, the Reverend Charles Dodgson, and M...

Venereal disease has been no respecter of persons and many notable figures have been afflicted in the past. Royal personages and politicians have enjoyed no immunity, and poets, musicians, writers, and artists longing for new experiences to inspire new works have ultimately had to face reality and publicity when complications arose in the form of stricture, tabes, insanity, or blindness with th...

I purposely decline entering at any length into the consideration of the law of lunacy relating to dispositions of property, and the performance of the marriage contract. In the former case the proof of insanity invalidates all testamentary documents; but the courts are extremely jealous in interfering with the apparent wishes of the testator, unless clear and positive lunacy be established. Th...