This is a collection of medical puzzles featuring historical figures. Each entry in this series was designed to aid my classmates and me in reviewing for our exams, as well as add some history and culture to our course work.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Images in Historical Pediatrics:
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was one of the great painters of the German Renaissance and helped bring the Italian principles of perspective an classicism into northern Europe. As with all great artists he had a keen eye for human anatomy, and perhaps even neuromuscular pathology. What physical finding does the child in this painting have?
Madonna and Child, 1498
Answer (highlight to see): Erb's Palsy aka "waiter's tip"
Monday, January 18, 2016
Case Records of the Historical Grand Rounds: Case 7: Felix Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 1809-1847
Felix Mendelssohn was one of the great yet under appreciated composers of the German-romantic movement. Born into a wealthy Jewish family, he was the grandson of the famous rabbinic philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, though abandoned Judaism to live as an assimilated protestant. He was known as one of the great virtuoso pianists of his age and his compositions are now appreciated for their melancholic, restrained romanticism that never quite abandons the classical age.
Despite being a product of the romantic era, Mendelssohn was staunchly
conservative in his musical tastes. His enthusiasm for baroque music,
J.S. Bach in particular, revived the public’s interest in these works an
elevated Bach from a largely forgotten church organist to a composer of
historical importance. He clashed with many of his colleagues, but his
sensibilities found a welcome home in England, where he premiered most
of his works. The British Royal family even used a piece from his opera A
Midsummer Night’s Dream for Princess Victoria’s wedding in 1858. The
tradition endures to this day.
The Mendelssohn family had a history of premature deaths that was unfortunately passed on to Felix. His grandfather, father, and two sisters all died of what appeared to be a series of strokes separated by years with seizure-like symptoms in between. Felix's first stroke occurred at the age of 30 and presented as tingling and temporary loss of function in his hands. A similar event took place seven years later, around the time his sister Fanny died from “apoplexy”. This rendered him speechless for some time. In the following days he had two more strokes that made him immobile and caused him severe headaches described as “a foreign body wanting to impress itself forcefully into his head”. He became delirious and died after a few fruitless attempts by his doctors to revive him with leeches and vinegar massages. Considering his strong family history, it is possible he suffered from an autosomal dominant syndrome that often presents with multiple strokes before age 50. What is it?