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Book Review: My Notorious Life by Kate Manning

Today on the Fiction Reboot | Daily Dose, we present a review of My Notorious Life!  This work is based upon the true story of Anne Lohman, also known as Madame Restell, a prominent New York midwife enveloped in scandal, who died by suicide in 1879. The Dittrick Museum will host Kate Manning for a short talk and book signing on Sept 19th; RSVP to jks4@case.edu. “Women’s Private Matters”: Thoughts on My Notorious Life by Kate Manning Reviewed by--Anna Clutterbuck-Cook Halfway through Kate Manning’s historical bildungs roman, My Notorious Life (Scribner, 2014) the young protagonist confronts her husband. Axie Ann (Muldoon) Jones...

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The Microscope: A Crucial "Lens" of History

Picture for a moment the toxicologist, bending over his microscope to isolate and identify toxins--the biologist seeking new species in creek water--the geneticist parsing the double helix. Think of the physician, the scientist, even the micro-engineers. Now imagine those same specialists without one crucial piece of equipment: the microscope. Where would we be without this so-important "lens"? The first "light microscope" owes its invention to Zacharias Jansen in the 1590's, but interest in magnification began much earlier. The Romans explored the properties of glass and how, depending on curve and angle, it could make small objects appear larger. Later developments...

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OUTBREAK! Rising Above in the Time of Cholera

The recent outbreak of Ebola in parts of Africa–and the frightened posts and live-tweets that accompanied two infected health workers as they returned to the US–give us a glimpse not only of an epidemic’s power but of our private terrors. Self-preservation, fear of the unknown, and a desire to protect the boundaries of nations, persons, bodies and cells brings out the best and worst in us. History provides both sides; the uninfected locked up with the infected in 14th century plague houses, left to starve and suffer in the dark–or doctors like Cleveland’s Horace Ackley, who personally combated and...

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The Spring-Lancet, A “Bloodstain’d Faithful Friend!”

The origins of blood-letting date back to Hippocrates in ancient Greece when the practice was recommended to both prevent as well as remedy illness. Galen also supported therapeutic bleeding because it fit with his humoral theory. According to humoral theory, illness is caused by an imbalance of the body’s four humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm . Thus, maintaining a balance of humors by the removal of excess blood was thought to preserve health. The spring-lancet was predated by the thumb lancet (15th century) and fleams (17th and 18th centuries) . Both these devices required the user to...

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