Michael Kennedy on medical history

A lunchtime lecture today given by Dr Michael Kennedy of the University of Southern California, author of A brief history of disease medicine and science: from the Ice Age to the Genome Project Asklepiad Press 2004 0974946648. He's in Britain to speak on medicine and the American Civil War, and on Harvey Cushing, Osler's biographer. He described how at USC they had brought medical history into the undergraduate medical curriculum, pioneered the use of actors in teaching clinical skills, (California. like Brighton, has a plentiful supply of resting actors and actresses) and the use of creative writing in medical schools.
Brief notes: Hippocrates: (he showed a page from an 1822 trilingual edition open at the aphorism ars longa, vita brevis (I can't work out how to put the Greek Ho bios...in here, if I can I will) US army doctors in 1918-19 flu pandemic applied Hippocrates knowledge on draining empyema Osler: innovative bedside teaching Cushing: Osler's biographer, went to war with the Harvard Ambulance and flouted the army regulations which forbade keeping a diary and owning a camera, publishing the diary after the war Roentgen: he had a description of Roentgen's work the year before the discovery of X-rays. Billroth: pictures of the Operating Room at Bellevue in 1885 and 1890, showing the changes in Billroth had brought about, not without resistance. Banting: Leonard Thompson, first diabetic patient to be treated with insulin the daughter of Charles Evans Hughes (who was the unsuccessful 1912 republican presidential candidate against Woodrow Wilson) and diabetes Interesting discussion as well what did Hippocrates get wrong, to which the answer was anatomy. Though Dr Kennedy was uncertain about Greek burial practices, something which I'm sure I can find out. Controversial point: he thought Roy Porter better on early medical history, than later. Not sure I agree. At the end the discussion touched on an area that used to trouble me in my veterinary days, the relationship between the gentlemen and the players, in other word the academic historians and the enthusiastic, often retired, amateur practitioners who develop an interest in medical or veterinary history.