I am working to catch up on some of my projects today, especially my writing.  I've been working literally night and day on several different web related projects and my hobby here at history of the book of medicine has taken a little to the backseat.  I've been helping several new bloggers get their blogs up and running, and I've been helping several clients initiate professional blogs, with a website and a shopping cart.  More importantly I've been working on several of my own business endeavors that help to fund my efforts here so I can spend the time cataloging the history of medicine is was taught a hundred years ago.  I'm also in the middle of a relocation from the Atlanta area to the Charlotte, North Carolina area and so I've been moving back and forth throughout all this preparing the new home and preparing to leave the old home.  In part this means that I have to setup and breakdown my office almost every day moving from one desk or location to the next.  One day I might find myself sitting on a couch and working, laptop and lap, and another day I might be sitting down to Kinko's in front of a row of modern desks or even sitting on the dock by the lake underneath a ceiling fan watching the dogs chase after insects and each other.

 

I noticed this week as google went through their update that our website here, got knocked down a peg or two and that doesn't bother me terribly much.  I have not been promoting this website terribly hard, as this truly is a hobby and not so much a business, that said it was a good reminder that I need to network more with other  websites that might have a similar aim or focus or even some that are tangentially related.

 

So if you have a medical related blog, and medical history blog or even alternative medicine blog or website, please leave me a comment I'd like to review possibly exchanging links and building up better network.  (Please no spamming comments, we can exchange more details off-line if necessary.)

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• 3 Very Different Reasons for Cosmetic Surgery
  
  

  As we review the history of medical instruction in the book of medicine, it becomes somewhat apparent that things were typically done more out of a need for necessity.  Sometimes the perspective was based on false premises, sometimes the science or medicine was wrong, and sometimes the wrong treatment was utilized, but one commonality seems to be the perceived necessity.  One hundred years ago when surgical procedures were not much better than they were 1,000 years ago, you didn’t fix something that wasn’t broken and typically you didn’t fix something unless it was very broken.

  Today we fix things that are not broken all the time.  We fix things to make them better than they were originally.  ‘Better’ is loosely defined in medicine today. It can mean an aesthetic improvement or a functional improvement or a combination of the two.

  One sub niche of cosmetic surgery is ethnic plastic surgery. This area of medicine focuses on changing physical traits that are common to one ethnic group.  Sometimes that physical characteristic is changed in a way that reduces the perception of the trait being identifiable from that original ethnic source.

  Another niche of cosmetic surgery is a localized procedure for beverly hills breast reduction.  Breast augmentations are typically aesthetically driven, and they are usually augmented by increasing size or volume of the breast.  Some women choose to go the other direction.  Breast reductions can be driven by aesthetic purposes, but they can also be driven by functional purposes as well.  The reduction can reduce body weight and make movement and exercise more comfortable.

  A third niche of cosmetic surgery is los angeles liposuction.  This process is often cosmetic but does provide health benefits by reducing the straing on the heart and other systems.  Liposuction removes body fat from localized areas of the body.  It literally sucks the fatty tissue out of the body.  When people gain weight they can grow new fat cells.  When they loose weight they do not loose fat cells, the cells just get smaller.  Liposuction removes the fast cells, making it somewhat easier to maintain a new lower weight.

• Another Case of Infection (Cholera Reference to teawater pump in London 1854)
  
  

  Another Case of Infection.-Another famous illustration is found in the history of the "tea water pump" of broad Street, Near Golden square, London, which during the cholera visitation of 1854, killed nearly 500 persons in a single week, in one of the fashionable localities of the city. It has long been known that water containing five or six grains of lime and magnesium to the gallon is much to be preferred for making tea to water of any other quality.  This is because the line precipitates the astringent matter of the leaf, yet does not interfere with the solution of the desirable constituents; and hence certain wells which have the proper proportion of mineral matter come to be valued very highly by persons of nice taste.

  

  The images represent a tea water pump in New York(left) placed over a natural spring (right) that had existed in Manhattan long before Europeans came to the colonies and helped create situations where cholera could break out. 

  This reference to the 1854 Cholera outbreak would have been relatively recent in the minds of many.  It would have only been about 60 years old at the time of this articles printing, however, when this book was first published, it may have been referenced when the epidemic was only 20 – 30 years old possibly.  In terms of recency or relevancy, we today might have a similar perspective on the massacre at Jonestown or the Kennedy killing.  It would have made a much bigger impression on people that heard the news than say a case of food poisoning resulting from a problem with popcorn machines or something in a bar or movie theater.

• Use of the Auricles
  
  

  Use of the Auricles– The auricles serve as reservoirs to receive the blood — the right, as it comes dark and foul from its tour of the body; the left, as it filters bright and pure from the oxygenated forest of lungs — and to furnish it to the ventricles as they need it. This is graphically shown in the chart, the large blue vein, formed by the jugular and subclavian veins, is seen descending downward and emptying into the right auricle; the red pulmonary vein, formed by the coalescing of its numerous branches, conveying rich, pure blood for the lungs and depositing it in the left auricle.corresponding to the lightness of the work they perform, the walls of the auricles are comparatively thin and weak.

  ____________

  Referring to the blood as dark and foul seems a little overly dramatic for this particular description. Similarly it refers to the blue vein, which as we’ve pointed out in a past article is inaccurate. Other than those accommodation of odd and incorrect items section is in too bad. It’s a little overly descriptive in a literary sense but the most part seems to be fairly on-topic.

  If the author really wanted to see something that was foul or dangerous I wonder what they would’ve thought of a Def Leppard concert. In a way it’s too bad that the authors are not alive today, otherwise I would’ve sent them a def leppard tour schedule. I’m sure that would give them something to really write about.