You are looking at a rare Medieval illustration of the anatomy of a uterus. It is highly schematic/abstract, obviously, but the important bits for Medieval people were all there. At the top, you see a fetus (the Latin words used were “embryo,” “conceptus,” and “fetus”), and straight below it is the entrance marked “hec eat […]
Medieval Uterus Anatomy Read More »
We know that women in the Middle Ages wanted to have control over their ability to conceive, and medical texts from these centuries show that while women wanted to know how they could avoid getting pregnant, many were also concerned about infertility. After all, bearing children was considered the central function of women in this
The Trotula Test for Medieval Infertility Read More »
You are looking at a page out of the Voynich manuscript, an as-yet untranslated text from the first half of the 15th-century. Shown is an illustration of what may be a type of sage plant. Many types of common herbs were likely taken as a means of birth control in the Middle Ages, but knowledge
Sage as a Contraceptive and Abortificant Read More »
The study of the history of birth control in the Medieval Isalmic world breaks a lot of stereotypes.According to the Islamic tradition recorded in the _Hadith_ (sacred Islamic scriptures accounting the sayings or deeds of the prophet Muhammad), sexual pleasure was something that married women (as well as men) had a right to. Although the
Birth Control, Sex, and Abortion in the Medieval Islamic World Read More »
Evolutionary history is the focus of my posts for a while, and what better place to start than CRISPR? Last week, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna’s work in using CRISPR for gene editing made news headlines – this is the first time the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to two women. The future
CRISPR Gene and The Nobel Prize in Chemistry Read More »
This is Marie-Claire King (born 1946), and just reading about her accomplishments makes me tired. Besides earning her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, she has six other honorary doctorates in science from the most prestigious universities in the world. From her work in discovering the genetic foundations of breast cancer, schizophrenia, and hearing loss, to her
Marie-Claire King and Genetic Studies Read More »
A few days ago I did a post featuring a fossil of a creature called Archaeopteryx, famed for having traits both bird- and dinosaur- like: it filled in a gap in the evolutionary record. The photo you see here is of the paleo-biologist Neil Shubin with a model of a creature whose fossils he found.
Neil Shubin and the Tiktaalik Read More »
Historians are frequently enchanted by things discarded as useless by the general public. But I think anyone interested in evolution would find the study of non-gene coding DNA fascinating, including the scientist featured here. This is Susumu Ohno, one of the United States’ foremost geneticists and evolutionary biologists, and he came up with the term
Susumu Ohno’s “Junk DNA” Read More »
“The Persistence of Memory” is one of artist Salvador Dali’s most recognizable paintings. The surrealist style is perfectly adapted to depicting the ways our minds preserve our memories — they are suggestive, dreamlike, warpable. For however imperfect or relativistic our memories might be, we owe them for much of our sense of identity.How we humans
Salvador Dali and the Arc Gene Read More »
Charles Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection as the key driver of evolution has been demonstrated many times over. However, in the century and a half since his lifetime, scientists have added onto his theories as various scientific discoveries have been made. Perhaps no one has reframed the picture of Darwinian evolution as much as the
Lynn Margulis and Eukaryotic Cells Read More »
What was it about Eastern Europe in the 1700s that brought about so many stories of Vampires? Some scholars note that Western European countries like Britain might have enjoyed these legends because they could make people feel civilized — those “eastern places” were rural, Catholic, superstitious, and backward in the minds of nationalist Brits.However, there
The Blood Disorder Porphyria and Vampirism Read More »
The global situation right now is dominated by discussion of COVID-19, as well as the Herculean attempts to create a vaccine for the disease. And as reports of the Phase III trials start to come in, we can look at this photo — a scientist’s laboratory from the early 20th century, cluttered and filthy. Rotting
Thomas Morgan and Gene Studies Read More »
The Scientific Revolution that developed in Europe did not always lead to the embracing of rationality. This engraving by William Hogarth from 1751 is a case in point. You see in this image a grand display of the dissection of a corpse at the hands of professional anatomists. Yet even though the endeavour might have
Europe’s Murder Act of 1751 Read More »
This week’s stories focus on a subject in science history which is indeed topical across the world right now: the discovery of how the human immune system works. And to begin, I am introducing the image of this young girl, named Myrtis by the Greek archaeologists who reconstructed her appearance after excavating a mass grave
The Plague of Athens and the Immune System Read More »
Today on December 14, 2020, a critical care nurse in New York became the first American to receive the COVID vaccine. This begins a period of highly anticipated vaccine delivery in the weeks to come. The photo here harkens to another moment in American history when folks waited with bated breath for a cure for
The “Great Race of Mercy” for a Diphtheria Cure in Alaska Read More »
Shown here are Doctors Pear Kendrick and Grace Eldering, and together they developed the first successful vaccine against the childhood disease pertussis, or Whooping Cough.Whooping Cough is of course characterized by the sound of the hollow, forced, and unremitting chest cough that mostly younger people endured until the 20th-century development of a vaccine: it killed
Doctors Pear Kendrick and Grace Eldering Read More »
This week’s posts feature great moments in the history of immunology. Although the death of Vizzini (and corresponding survival of the hero Westley due to his years of building up immunity to iocaine powder, among the deadlier and fictitious poisons known to man) in _The Princess Bride_ might be famous in terms of cultural history,
The Antibody Serums of Shibasaburo Kitasato and Emil von Behring Read More »
In this last post for the week to focus on great moments in immunology, I feature a rare time when biologists actually got their naming system right.Featured here is an Ancient Roman copy of a Greek statue featuring Artemis. Although usually known as the Goddess of the Hunt and wilderness, the moon, and female chastity,
Scientists Despina Moshous and the Artemis Protein Read More »
No surprise, much more documentation survives regarding naming ceremonies for the wealthy versus regular people in Ancient and Medieval societies. This is certainly the case with Japanese history. Isn’t it fantastic, though, that amidst the paucity of evidence — I mean, we know *so* little about Japanese childbirth and naming practices — we at least
Japan’s “Scroll of the Hungry Ghosts” Read More »
It is easy to dramatize the callousness of Ancient Roman fathers who controlled whether their infants were to be killed through exposure. As the tenderness of the gaze from adult to child carved on this marble statue shows, Roman fathers certainly could have loving affection for their children.The purification rituals surrounding Ancient Roman births were
Ancient Roman “Lustratio” Birthing Ceremonies Read More »
