The noun invasion has its origins in the 12th century Latin word invadere: to walk, to go into, to fall upon. In the 15th century we adopted the Old French term invasion, which is steeped in negative concepts like attack and assault. This definition, ubiquitous across healthcare, remains in use today. It stands to reason […]
Month: May 2015
In 1898 Würzburg medical student Hermann Rottmann proposed tobacco dust, not smoke, might be causing the elevated incidence of lung tumors among German tobacco workers. In 1912 New York doctor Isaac Adler proposed smoking, not tobacco dust, was to blame for the growing incidence of pulmonary tumours. The intervening years reveal a rocky road on […]
Living longer increases our likelihood of experiencing more than one chronic health problem at a time. At least one in two older people have more than one chronic disorder with an average number of conditions ranging between 2.5 and 6.5. That is a heavy burden for one person. Co-morbidity or multimorbidity, as it is now […]
During the last century clinical curiosity in the human body focussed on what is inside. With the exception of dermatology, interest in exposed surfaces has been outside of the medical domain and frequently only skin deep. In short, attempts at linking the body’s exterior to its inner workings have occasionally surfaced but these have largely […]
The Thinker 