My Blog
Dangerous Books
Usually, when people talk about dangerous books, they are referring to the content, so we think about banned books, and politically controversial books. I’m referring to books that are dangerous objects. What do I mean? Before we can talk about books, we need to talk...
The Candy Land Game and Its Link to Polio
We all remember playing Candy Land, following the brightly colored path through the peppermint stick forest and gumdrop mountains, past the lollipop woods to get to Home Sweet Home. However, few people realize that this game would never have been invented if not for...
Tennessee Williams and How Illness Affected What He Wrote
The Glass Menagerie launched Tennessee Williams’ Broadway career. You may remember the character Laura, the abnormally shy, dreamy sister of Tom, the protagonist. She spent her time escaping from life, drawn into a world of glass figurines. It’s a largely...
How Illness Changed Robert Louis Stevenson’s Life
Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-1894) was one of the best-known authors of his day. He was a paradox; he traveled widely, yet was weak and sickly all of his life. He spent much of his life in bed or in a sickroom, yet he wrote wonderful adventures like Kidnapped and...
Do You Need a Mad Stone in Your First Aid Kit?
First of all, what in the world is a mad stone? Smooth, odd-shaped, unusually colored, of almost any size, mad stones are miraculous objects possessing healing powers. They are actually bezoars, hairball-like concretions found in the stomachs of animals such as deer...
How Did Edgar Allan Poe Really Die?
Famous writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was the first American writer to fully support himself by his writing. He single-handedly started the detective genre, as well as the science fiction genre. He is famous for his mysteries and Gothic horror stories. When we...
Mark Twain and How Illness Shaped His Life
The famous American author Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) lived from 1835 to 1910. In spite of being a life-long serious cigar smoker, he was quite healthy until late in life, when he developed heart trouble. However, illness, particularly infectious diseases, changed...
Beatrix Potter and How Disease Shaped Her Life
I’ve always been curious about why famous writers became writers, and why they wrote what they wrote. Clearly, our life experiences shape what we write, and we as writers are always admonished to “write what you know”. As a doctor, I am fascinated by illness and...
Beauty Kills
Beauty Kills Imagine you are Spanish royalty in the 1600s. Spain is at the height of its international prowess and is a fabulously rich country. Untold wealth has been transferred from Central and South America in the form of gold and silver. Spain is, indeed, a...
Mad Hatter
The Mad Hatter We all remember the Mad Hatter, the character in Alice in Wonderland. Alice meets the Hatter having tea with the March hare and the Dormouse. He acts erratically, asking nonsense riddles, reciting ridiculous poetry, switching places at the table, biting...