Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift
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Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. · Dec 2022
Historical Article[Fight against infection in early cinema - a retrospective in times of COVID-19].
Contagious diseases and other conditions from the field of internal medicine have always kept the world on its edge. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has recently reminded us of this with all its terror. If one looks for a historical equivalent, the Spanish flu impresses with as many similarities as differences. ⋯ Furthermore, such a study helps to put the present events in an adequate context. As a result, it becomes clear how little contemporary developments should be seen as an anomaly; how cinema, as an anticipatory medium with a warning function, reflects medical reality; how poorly the film industry used the therapeutic possibilities of cinematic art in times of pandemics. Finally, however, it becomes particularly apparent what a significant role internal diseases or internists played in the history of cinema from the very beginning.
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Dtsch. Med. Wochenschr. · Dec 2022
[Medicine and epidemiology require the distinction between curare and sanare].
What medicine is and what it does, both in its individual form of medical practice and in its collective form as public health and epidemiology, can only be understood if the underlying concept of nature is understood. The essential distinction is that between producing and produced nature, between natura naturans and natura naturata. ⋯ It would be necessary to consider the interaction of the natural biological development and spread dynamics of the infectious agent with the immunity of the host population and its environment. Where is a curative intervention in the imbalance of epidemic spread possible and in the sense of the medicus curat, i. e. the restoration of the natural balance, necessary and productive? Where is this not indicated in terms of Natura sanat? These questions can only be answered in view of the "nature as a whole".
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There is frequent confusion between Theodor Langhans (1839-1915) and Paul Langerhans (1847-1888) in the literature. Theodor Langhans was a German pathologist who discovered and described the "giant cells" with nuclei close to the outer membrane of the tubercles. Today, these cells are called "Langhans' giant cells". ⋯ Paul Langerhans described these cells for a competition organised by the Berlin Medical Faculty when he was still a student. Most doctors know Paul Langerhans through the first description of the "Langerhans' islet cells" of the pancreas. Langerhans died of tuberculosis at the age of 40 after a long exile on the island of Madeira.
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Robert Louis Stevenson for many years had to lead the life of an invalid. He most likely suffered from hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia rather than from tuberculosis. His illness, however, did not prevent him from writing one of the most famous horror novels: "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". ⋯ Reflecting on Stevenson's novella, the macabre and mystical setting serves as a stage to display good and evil, light and shadow - the eternal duality of human existence. The reader senses that we all inherit a destructive force, but we long to be able to control its momentum. It dawns upon us, however, that the diabolical promise given to Adam and Eve in the biblical creation story, i. e. "you will be like God and know what is good and evil" will remain wishful thinking.