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Think the life of a doctor is dull? Think again! In a previous post, I recommended ten books by medical men which all doctors should read. Today, it’s the turn of medical movies. By focusing on the extremes of human life – birth, death, suffering, illness, and health – such films provide insight into the human condition and the part that we as doctors play in this never-ending theatre.
The Reith lectures were inaugurated in 1948 by the BBC to celebrate and commemorate Lord Reith’s major contribution to British broadcasting. Many distinguished names are to be found in the alumni of lecturers, whose origins are not confined to this sceptred isle in which the concept of these educational thought provoking radio talks were conceived.
Egyptian mummies continue to fascinate us due to the remarkable insights they provide into ancient civilizations. Flinders Petrie, the first UK chair in Egyptology did not have the luxury of X-ray techniques in his era of archaeological analysis in the late nineteenth century. However, twentieth century Egyptologists have benefited from Roentgen’s legacy. Sir Graham Elliott Smith along with Howard Carter did early work on plain x-ray analysis of mummies when they X-rayed the mummy Tuthmosis in 1904. Numerous X-ray analyses were performed using portable X-ray equipment on mummies in the Cairo Museum.
Since then, many studies have been done worldwide, especially with the development of more sophisticated imaging techniques such as CT scanning, invented by Hounsfield in the UK in the 1970s. With this, it became easier to visualize the interiors of mummies, thus revealing their hidden mysteries under their linen wrapped bodies and the elaborate face masks which had perplexed researchers for centuries. Harwood Nash performed one of the earliest head scans of a mummy in Canada in 1977 and Isherwood’s team along with Professor David also performed some of the earliest scannings of mummies in Manchester.
Tori Randall, PhD prepares a 550-year old Peruvian child mummy for a CT scan, by Samantha A. Lewis for the US Navy. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
A fascinating new summer exhibition at the British Museum has recently opened, and consists of eight mummies, all from different periods and Egyptian dynasties, that have been studied with the latest dual energy CT scanners. These scanners have 3D volumetric image acquisitions that reveal the internal secrets of these mummies. Mummies of babies and young children are included, as well as adults. There have been some interesting discoveries already, for example, that dental abscesses were prevalent as well as calcified plaques in peripheral arteries, suggesting vascular disease was present in the population who lived over 3,000 years ago. More detailed analysis of bones, including the pelvis, has been made possible by the scanned images, enabling more accurate estimation of the age of death.
Although embalmers took their craft seriously, mistakes did occur, as evidenced by one of the mummy exhibits, which shows Padiamenet’s head detached from the body during the process, the head was subsequently stabilized by metal rods. Padiamenet was a temple doorkeeper who died around 700BC. Mummies had their brains removed with the heart preserved as this was considered the seat of the soul. Internal organs such as the stomach and liver were often removed; bodies were also buried with a range of amulets.
The exhibit provides a fascinating introduction to mummies and early Egyptian life more than 3,000 years ago and includes new insights gleaned from cutting edge twenty first century imaging technology.
In May this year, the American Osler Society held a joint meeting with the London Osler Society and the Japanese Osler Society in Oxford at the Randolph Hotel. The Societies exist to perpetuate the memory of arguably one the most influential physicians of the early twentieth century, and to discuss topics related to Sir William Osler’s interests. It is fitting that this meeting was held in Oxford, where Osler spent his time as the Regius Professor of Medicine having transferred from another great seat of medical learning at Johns Hopkins Medical School in the United States.
Osler was interested in medical education (he produced his classic textbook, which ran to several editions) and set about trying to improve the education of future doctors. Osler’s other great legacy was his combination of superb clinical skills honed by experience not only on the wards but also in the laboratories, and his great interest in the humanities. Osler always tried to combine these two approaches in his work, and much of his writings and aphorisms are as relevant today as when they were first written. Medical students could read Aequanimitas today more than a century after it was written, and would profit from much of the advice to students within this volume of essays and addresses.
Osler had a great interest in the History of Medicine and helped found the history section of the Royal Society of Medicine in London. This scientific section has continued to flourish for over a century. He believed physicians should be well rounded and well read, and that medicine was a calling of both art and science. Although Osler was not against the idea of specialisation in medicine, he was a superb generalist and could manage both adult and child patients. He believed that doctors owed it to themselves to be well versed in the range of disease and illness afflicting mankind. His early interest in comparative pathology during his time at the Montreal Veterinary College prepared him well when dealing with infectious diseases which in the pre-antibiotic area were the scourge of the day, as compared with today in the West where degenerative diseases, cancers and diseases of longevity have overtaken infections as a major killer in the Western world.
The centenary of the Great War is 2014; it was Osler who started a campaign for the compulsory vaccination of soldiers for typhoid, publishing letters in the Times and The British Medical Journal on this topic. That year his literary output also included his Incunabula Medica, a study of 214 of the earliest printed medical books from 1467-1480. Although finished, it was not published until 1923, four years after his death.
Throughout the late twentieth century medicine has continued to super-specialize at an alarming pace throughout the world, driven by the rapid advances in medical diagnosis and treatment. X-rays were only invented in 1895, and the early part of the twentieth century began to see the introduction of chest x-rays into clinical practice. This was still a world away from CT scans, ultrasounds, and MRI scans, which are now de rigueur in the management of patients. Yet in spite of all this progress, disaffection with the medical profession seems rife. Could it be that the general physicians are going to make a comeback? Perhaps a more humanitarian approach to the patient is what is required again, maybe combined with the inexorable technical progress which will undoubtedly continue in the future. Osler would have been amused to see how the wheel of medical fashion has turned full circle.
Arpan K Banerjee qualified in medicine from St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in London, UK and trained in Radiology at Westminster Hospital and Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital. In 2012 he was appointed Chairman of the British Society for the History of Radiology of which he is a founder member and council member. In 2011 he was appointed to the scientific programme committee of the Royal College Of Radiologists, London. He is the author/co-author of six books including the recent The History of Radiology.
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