Wounds, Autopsies and Mysteries

Wounds, Autopsies and Mysteries In all forms of gun related death the crucial evidence comes from ballistics. The amount of shots fired and the number of gunmen, the path of the bullets and which of the wounds was the fatal shot. There was plenty of evidence available with the JFK shooting to help equate the answers to these questions but it was poorly handled. This means that to this day the truth can, probably, never be known. During the motorcade, Governor Connally heard the first shot, then was hit about two seconds later. The Parkland doctors confirmed the bullet that hit Connally still in his left thigh. The president was first hit at the back of his neck, and then the second bullet hit his head from the back. The Parkland Doctor Perry said the shot was at the lower portion of the neck and was an entry wound. The president's body, at Parkland Hospital wrapped in a sheet and placed in a bronze casket, one of the most expensive that Parkland Hospital had. Then, when the body reached Washington for the Autopsy, it was in a grey casket, not very good quality and the presidents body was wrapped differently. The body was in a grey body bag and the brain of the president was missing. The president's body was "hijacked" on the way to Washington. If the brain was still in the president's body, some trace of metal could be found, and the make of bullet could be deciphered

  • Word count: 449
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Twentieth Century Medicine: is it good for you?

Twentieth Century Medicine: is it good for you? Medicine of the 20th century is a great deal more powerful and effective than that of previous centuries. But with this power has come a price, several in fact, all adding up to a bill of human suffering that seems horrendous. Thalidomide, salmonella, super bugs, the list goes on. But with these consequences, great learning has happened and the majority of medical treatments are of benefit to humanity. A sizeable portion saving lives. An example of this is smallpox, which, thanks to Jenner's discovery of vaccinations, has been wiped off the planet, except in controlled laboratory conditions. The four main points of criticism when it comes to 20th century medicine are drugs, vaccines, hospitals and high technology medicine. High technology medicine is criticised because it is basically seen as being too powerful, e.g. it can make a body that is technically brain dead, chemically alive or where the medicine is so powerful that a small slip up can have disastrous results. Put it simply it seems to put the power of God into the hands of a doctor, who is only human, and humans are not infallible, so mistakes are made occasionally and people die. That said high technology is also powerful enough to tackle the some of the most serious injuries and diseases known to man, like cancer, without powerful drugs and radio therapy

  • Word count: 848
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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History and development of Western medicine.

Complementary Therapies BSc (Hons) Year 1 Semester Two 2003 Module: History and Development of Western Medicine Task: "The developments in Western Medicine between the 17th to the end of the 19th century that interested me the most" Sharna Richardson Tutor: Stan Date Set: 29th January 2003 Date Due: 31st May 2003 Essay Title: "Developments in women's roles in Western Medicine between the 17th and end of the 19th century." Discuss Introduction This essay will discuss some significant developments in Western Medicine with particular reference to the impact these developments had on women's roles as 'healers' and midwives during the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries. Historical Overview - women's roles up to the16th century From prehistoric up to Ancient Greek and Roman times people superstitious was dominant explanation for sickness, and people believed that spirits caused illness. They thought that when an evil spirit entered the body, the sick persons own healthy spirit left the body. Illness and injuries were treated with herbs and plants. It is believed that they used herbs such as chick weed for ulcers and violets for cough medicine, and that they used crude surgery, and could set broken bones were. Trephining (making a hole in there skull) they believed let out evil spirits and eased bad headaches. They also used charms to ward off evil spirits and

  • Word count: 3206
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Who was Cladius Galen?

GALEN CHANGES MEDICINE WHO WAS CLAUDIUS GALEN? Claudius Galen was physician to five Roman emperors. He was a teacher, philosopher, pharmacist, and leading scientist of his day. During his life he produced five hundred books and treatises on all aspects of medical science and philosophical subjects and his ideas were to formulate many of the scientific beliefs which dominated medical thinking for about 1 500 years. Galen was the great compiler and systemiser of Greco-Roman medicine, physiology, pharmacy, and anatomy. Because he displayed a view of God and nature shared by the Christians of the middle Ages and the Renaissance, they regarded him as a fellow-Christian. This goes some way to account for the attitude of the Church towards free thinkers. Galen's influence can be still seen today. The word " galenic" is used to describe drugs and medicines made from vegetable and animal ingredients using prescribed methods. WHERE WAS HE BORN? Galen was born at Pergamum, Asia Minor on the 22 September 131 and was educated by his father, who decided his son should enter the medical profession. This was a wise choice as his son went on to become extremely famous. WHAT DID GALEN DO? At first, Galen studied philosophy, in particular Aristotle but when seventeen began to specialise in medicine. While studying medicine Galen travelled extensively throughout Greece, Asia Minor, and

  • Word count: 504
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Biomedical models

Introduction The biomedical and biopsychosocial models have been two significant approaches as ways of attempting to decipher the pathways of health, disease, and well-being. The traditional biomedical model considers disease to be primarily a failure within the body, resulting from infections, accidents and inheritance and does not regard any social and psychological aspects of illness within the model. The biopsychosocial model is the predominant model of understanding illness today by incorporating the social and psychological factors into the prevailing biomedical model. It is a better way of understanding how health and illness are affected by many levels of systems, from molecular to the societal, and how these can affect the overall well-being of the patient. There are many differences between the two models and so these two models will be compared and contrasted with each other to show how each understands illness and how it maintains health and well-being for individuals and society. History and the Biomedical Model Back in the nineteenth and up to the early twentieth century, most of the diseases present at that time were infectious diseases that spread and killed many rapidly, for example, measles, lupus and small pox. Therefore at that time, physicians assumed that diagnosis was a relatively objective process and that reducing the pain that the

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Narrative Medicine connotes a medicine practiced with narrative competence and marked with an understanding of the highly complex narrative situations among doctors, patients, colleagues, and the public

Murad Idris Assignment: Advice Narrative Medicine Student number: 2092557 Email: [email protected] Date: 22-04-2012 Lecturer: Ad Kaptein Advice Narrative Medicine ‘’Narrative medicine a way forward’’ Narrative Medicine connotes a medicine practiced with narrative competence and marked with an understanding of the highly complex narrative situations among doctors, patients, colleagues, and the public For years now, the fields of narrative medicine and literature and medicine have reminded doctors that illness unfolds in stories that clinical practice transpires in the intimacy between teller and listener and that physicians are as much witnesses to patients' suffering as they are fixers of their broken parts. More and more clinicians and trainees are being encouraged to write about their clinical practices so as to develop the capacity for reflection. New clinical routines that provide patients with copies of what their doctors write about them or that encourage patients to contribute directly to their medical records are challenging traditional notions of authorship of the clinical record and, indeed, of the illness. ‘’Stories stories’’

  • Word count: 1752
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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the man who mistook his wife for a hat

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat In this story, Dr. P, a teacher a local School of Music began to notice that over the years that he was becoming progressively worse and worse about mistaking people for objects and objects for people. Eventually it came to the point where we couldn't recognize anybody until they spoke, his ears would not deceive him like his eyes did. Because of this obviously strange and debilitating condition Dr. P decided to go see Dr. Sacks, to diagnose and help him with his problem. However, there is no name for the condition that De. P has, in fact there is no good explanation for why this happens to him at all. Dr. Sacks in one of his meetings with Dr. P gave Dr. P a glove and asked him to identify what the object was. Dr. P was able to describe the glove and feel it and look at it, yet he was not able to name the object as a glove. Much like the British man with a 15 second memory span, Dr. P loved music and sang no matter what he was doing, about what he was doing. What was so odd about this unnamed disorder is that the Dr. P had normal vision, he was not blind, so what was wrong was not his eyes but was how his brain perceived what his eyes saw. Somewhere along the line between his eyes and the part of his brain that recognizes what he is seeing something goes haywire and he is helpless. He sees a human yet cannot identify one, it is

  • Word count: 2269
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Who was more important to medicine,

Max Dawe 10T Who was more important to medicine, Hippocrates or Galen? In this piece of writing I am going to look at whether Hippocrates or Galen was more important to the history of medicine. Hippocrates was a Greek doctor/philosopher who was around during the Ancient Greece period. He started a theory which caused trouble at first but then doctors at the time and doctors later along all agreed with it. The theory was that it wasn't gods who caused disease and illness. Although he couldn't pinpoint as to what the correct cause of disease was he did say that it wasn't the gods. His second theory, which led on from the first, was the four humours. He thought the body was made up of black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. The four humours was a natural extension of their belief in the four seasons and the four elements. He thought if you were ill you had too much of something your body was trying to balance it. For example if you had a nose bleed you had to much blood and he suggested treatments such as sucking blood from you using leeches. He encouraged people to seek natural treatments instead of praying and going to the temples. Another thing which made him much more able to diagnose people was the fact that he wrote things down. He wrote down symptoms, how he treated them and whether the treatment worked or not. He started the way we practise doctoring now. He

  • Word count: 782
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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The role of the shaman: similarities and differences between Western therapeutic processes and traditional healing.

The role of the shaman: similarities and differences between Western therapeutic processes and traditional healing Abstract Human societies, in different contexts and at different times, have produced a number of traditional healers whose roles and functions largely overlap. In this paper, drawing on various literature sources, I will argue that the role of the shaman or traditional healer bears striking similarities with that of helping professionals in the Western world, particularly mental health professionals working within a therapeutic framework. Moreover similar mechanisms are involved in the way the therapeutic process is approached and illnesses are dealt with and eventually resolved. Introduction The anthropological and psychiatric literature on shamanism and spirit possession has often treated these phenomena as abnormal and as a sign of mental disturbance: "there is no reason and no excuse for not considering the shaman to be a severe neurotic or even a psychotic in a state of temporary remission" (Devereux 1956). The psychiatrist Yap explores the behaviour of the medicine-men of the Bataks of Borneo who, falling into a state of trance, are then possessed by a spirit who speaks through them: he believes their actions to be "doubtless hysterical in basis" (Yap 1951). In his paper on traditional healing in a Javanese town Geertz (1960) looks at the role of the

  • Word count: 4310
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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Latin Speech

Latin Speech For our speech we have chosen to stand against the accused in the scenario with the sick father and his son. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present our case against the accused. First, we shall outline the case. A banished son studies medicine. When his father falls ill, the son is summoned because he says he has a medicine which will cure him, despite the fact that all other doctors before have failed. The father drinks part of the medicine and says he has been poisoned. The son drinks the rest, but the father dies. The son is accused of parricide. Lets take the case step by step. Firstly, the son was banished from home. Why? We can't be sure. However, it was suspected that, due to mental insecurity, he killed his mother. Although the case was never proven, his father always believed it to be true. The likely case of the father's illness was depression resulting from the death of his wife and the loss of his only son. And how did the son react? Well all his dreams of getting into the best medical school were shattered. Instead he had to settle for a poor quality school for second rate doctors, and was left to explore the medical world on his own, learning from no basis more reliable than his own meandering experiences. And so, his life fell from high to low. For each failure he made he blamed his father. This son was afraid of the

  • Word count: 1001
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Medicine and Dentistry
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