As if AIDS-afflicted Africa didn’t have enough to contend with, the deadly Ebola virus keeps raising its ugly head, most recently in the West African nation of Gabon.
Medicine
Medics preparing to treat Ebola victims • Photo by Simon Davis/DFID (CC BY 2.0)
Photo by danilo.alvesd on Unsplash
Only mind knows if placebo works
Placebo Domino in regione vivorum, or “I will please the Lord in the land of the living.” This verse from the Latin Vulgate Bible brought the word placebo into the English language.
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Life-enhancing drugs should be lifesavers
A hundred years from now, historians will look back and see the 20th century as the time when scientists discovered that the human self is a biochemical machine.
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Will God cooperate in prayer study?
Can prayer heal? That question has been getting increased attention within the medical community, perhaps because of the general rise of interest in alternative therapies.
16th-century depiction of a ward in Hôtel-Dieu
When managed care was divine
My generation of Americans lived in fear of a shibboleth called “socialized medicine.”
Photo by v2osk on Unsplash
We’re more than the sum of our parts
Charles Sims is in town looking for sperm. Sims is co-founder of California Cryobank Inc., one of the nation’s largest sperm banks.
Bone marrow being drawn from a donor • US Navy photo (Public Domain)
In a health care crisis, antidotes to despair
It is easy to get down on doctors and medicine. Medical costs keep skyrocketing, services become more and more impersonal, and the waits in line become longer and longer.
Re-enactment of the first public demonstration of general anesthesia, 1846.
Customized anesthetics
A friend recently insisted that I watch the video of a cornea transplant operation on his eye — in close-up living color.
Photo by Daan Stevens on Unsplash
No place for politics
Cancer. The Big C. The dread disease. AIDS has grabbed more headlines in recent years, but cancer retains its primal grip on our imaginations.