Abstract The Daughter Zion allegory has previously been interpreted as a failed for mystical union, both because it relies on personification and some versions do not actually portray intimate union between the soul God. Focusing Middle Dutch incunable Vander dochtere van syon een deuoet exercitie ( A Devout Exercise of ), printed by Gheraert Leeu in 1492, I will offer different interpretation ...

consent from patients, substitute decision-makers or an independent tribunal in order to pull the plug on life-sustaining treatments they deem futile? An informal survey of Canadian case law indicates that courts have been all over the map on the issue, which has recently resurfaced in the headlines as part of a dispute between two physicians at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto,...

While dialysis historically began as treatment intended for younger patients, it has, over time, increasingly been extended to treat elderly patients with a high comorbidity burden. Data on the outcomes of dialysis in these patients show that in some cases it confers no benefit and may be associated with functional decline. We describe a 101-year-old male patient with chronic kidney disease (CK...

Previous studies suggest that religious prayer can alter the experience of pain via expectation mechanisms. While brain processes related to other types of top-down modulation of pain have been studied extensively, no research has been conducted on the potential effects of active religious coping. Here, we aimed at investigating the neural mechanisms during pain modulation by prayer and their d...

Jehovah's Witness patients pose a unique surgical challenge due to their refusal of transfusion of whole blood or major blood products. One of the surgical strategies is to offer the least invasive approach with the least likelihood of losing blood. In the context of surgical treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease, endoluminal approaches such as transoral incisionless fundoplication repre...

Consciousness derives from a neural process that requires unceasing metabolic support, and probably involves only a select population of neocortical elements. The essential process must operate for roughly more than 100 msec for sensorial registration (Libet). It is highly unlikely that the essence of the process lies in its computational logic and hence it can never be produced by inanimate ma...

he story is told of a young boy who returned home from church one Sunday morning and, over lunch, talked with his parents about the events of the day. “And what did you study in Sunday school today, John?” asked his mother. “We learned about Daniel,” he replied, “about Daniel and his houses.” The devout lady knew quite a bit about the book of Daniel, but she had never heard of Daniel’s houses. ...