Claudius Galen and his scholarly teachings defined the practice of medicine in Western Europe for 1500 years (Figure 1). His empiric approach, based on original animal experimentation, and his reputation for miraculous cures had an enormous influence on Western medicine during the Middle Ages and Renaissance until William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood in the early seventeenth c...

The article deals with the interest that mercantile and diasporic communities had in securing safe havens for themselves early modern Italy through example of Portuguese New Christian merchant Rui Teixeira, who 1593 managed to be invited by both Rome Tuscany. In his condition as a longtime resident Portugal Brazil, he cultivated about himself secure invitation leave along family. This suggests ...

“A a child, they could not keep me from wells,” wrote Seamus Heaney in his version of the Narcissus myth. “I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells / of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.” In countless versions, the ancient myth strikes a universal chord: person sees self, meets death. Ovid told of handsome Narcissus and Echo, the nymph who fell in love when she saw him “chasing frighte...

Tuberculosis (TB) is the oldest documented infectious disease. Fragments of the spinal column from Egyptian mummies from 2400 B.C. shows definite pathological signs of tubercular decay. The term phthisis (consumption) appears first in Greek literature. Hypocrates identified phthisis as the most widespread disease of the times around 460 B.C. Exact pathological and anatomical descriptions of the...

A 33-year-old male patient visited the outpatient clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for a routine follow-up for obesity, obstructive sleep apnea, allergic rhinitis, and depression. He was maintained on a nocturnal continuous positive airway pressure device, loratadine, duloxetine, and fluticasone nasal spray. He was a resident of Boston and had not traveled outside the country. He denied i...