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Author Horace Davenport is a retired professor of physiology who had a distinguished career in medical science. This book reflects his more recent interest in the history of medicine and physiology in the 19th and 20th centuries. The best summary of this transcription with commentary resides in the author's own introductory paragraph, paraphrased here: From 1899 to 1900 fourth year medical students at the University of Michigan doing their medicine and surgery rotations attended a diagnostic clinic twice a week with George Dock, A.M., M.D., professor of theory and practice of clinical medicine. Dr. Dock had a secretary make a shorthand record of everything that was said at these clinics by Dock himself, the patients, and the students.
The clinics and recording of the interactions continued until the summer of 1908 when Dr. Dock left Michigan for a position at Tulane. The typed transcripts of these sessions fill 6,800 pages. This book is Davenport's distillation and, on occasion, clarification of these documents. In these transcriptions resides not only a view of the practice of academic medicine at the turn of the 20th century, but also a glimpse at one clinician's interpretation of clinical material in his own time.
Before and after an appendectomy (done for what seem possibly questionable indications) an adolescent boy just feeling the surges of pubescence receives the appropriate attentions of a nurse. During a follow-up visit, for no clear medical reason that I can fathom, he also experiences the exhilarating good luck, for him, of a sperm test, performed by the physician's "young, good-looking nurse."
There are two parts to this six-page story. In the first part, an illiterate peasant woman hires a local man to write a letter to her daughter, who had married and moved to Petersburg four years earlier. The peasant woman had heard nothing from her daughter since then. She pours all her love into a few words of Christmas greeting, although the scribe adds a bunch of meaningless nonsense to fatten the letter up.
In the second part, the letter has arrived at the hydropathic medical establishment where the son-in-law works as a porter. He brings the letter to his wife, who is in their apartment caring for their three small children. Upon reading the letter, she bursts into tears and cries out, "Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender, take us away from here!"
Her husband recalls that several times she had given him letters to send to her parents, but he never bothered to do it. In the end the wife stops crying, obviously "very much frightened of him--oh, how frightened of him!"
Three stories are intertwined in this complex novel; in the end, they become one. In a series of flashbacks, the elderly Iris Chase Griffen writes of her long life. At the outset, newspaper clippings present three tragic deaths from 1945 to 1975: sister, husband, and daughter.
Iris's pretty, younger sister, Laura, died at age 25 when she drove her car off a bridge. Two years later, Iris published Laura's novel, Blind Assassin, to critical acclaim, projecting the author to posthumous fame. Only weeks later, Iris was widowed when her husband drowned. Then many years later, Iris's daughter, Aimée, breaks her neck and dies from the ravages of drug and alcohol abuse. Iris also loses care of her only grandchild, four-year old Sabrina. Iris looks back on the circumstances before and after these deaths.
Growing up in small-town Ontario without a mother, Iris was expected to look after Laura. But the younger girl's guileless intensity inspired exasperation and jealousy, as well as affection. In the 1930s, the sisters managed to hide a young radical, Alex Thomas, in the family attic before he escaped to Spain; they both fell in love. But at age nineteen, Iris is forced to enter a joyless marriage to wealthy Richard Griffen out of obedience to her father who hoped that the union would save his factory. It did not.
Laura is bossed by the politically ambitious Richard and his domineering sister, Winifred. Defiance and maternity allow Iris to carve out her own space within the confines of the social situation. But she is increasingly estranged from the romantic, inscrutable Laura who is eventually sent to an "asylum" where she has an abortion. Upon her release, the sisters reconnect, only to hurt each other with painful revelations (unrevealed here to avoid spoiling the effect for readers; some will have guessed them in advance).
The other two of the three stories stem from Laura's acclaimed novel "Blind Assassin," parts of which are interspersed. On one level, it relates the passionate affair of a refined woman (very like the author) and a political fugitive (very like Alex) who meet in his sordid hiding places. On another level, it is an Ali Baba-esque fairy tale, invented by the lovers, about a cruel society in which child-labor, ritualistic rape, and human sacrifice are routine. The killers are children who have been blinded by their enforced work knotting beautiful rugs.
The practice of medicine in equatorial Africa is both a challenge and an escape for Dr. Koestler. The physician from New Zealand works at a Global Aid mission in Zaire. He has toiled there a long time but is still a loner. His best friend appears to be a pet baboon named George Babbitt. The monkey drinks whiskey and smokes cigarettes. It is a clever creature with a mean streak and is generally despised by everyone except Koestler.
Two young American doctors arrive at the mission to assist Koestler. While the three physicians and the bush pilot drink whiskey and smoke marijuana, Koestler instructs the new doctors on some of the laws of jungle medicine: Use only disposable needles and then destroy them. Never transfuse a patient unless they require at least 3 units of blood (since all blood will likely be contaminated by Hepatitis B or HIV). Safe sex means no sex. Speed matters. Avoid getting involved because feelings will inevitably obstruct your work.
Although a leopard is roaming outside the confines of the mission, Koestler ventures into the darkness of the jungle to search for George Babbitt who has run off with a bottle of whiskey. In a locale teeming with life, the physician remains essentially alone--by choice.
Manlius is a 5th C Roman patrician living in Provence who has studied with the wise, reclusive Sophia. He writes his understanding of her teaching in his essay, 'Dream of Scipio,' which trades on an essay by the great Roman orator, Cicero. Sensing that the Empire is gravely threatened, he makes a pact with barbarians, sells out his neighbors, slays his adopted son, and becomes a bishop of the Christian religion, which he has long despised. Late in this ruthless and doomed attempt to salvage what he values most in his world, Sophia makes it clear that he has misunderstood her teaching.
Olivier is an astonishingly gifted 14th century Provencal poet whose intolerant father tries to stifle his love of letters, among which is Manlius's 'Dream'; his father destroys the manuscript, but Olivier recopies it from memory. As plague advances on their region, Olivier finds a mentor in the high churchman, Ceccani, who is bent on keeping the papacy in Avignon. He plans to destroy Jews as symbolic expiation for plague, widely construed to be a form of divine punishment. Olivier befriends a Jewish scholar and falls in love with his beautiful heretic servant.
The 'Dream' and the imprisonment of his friends lead Olivier to question and then betray his mentor. Either because of his efforts to save them, or for his role in a murder, he is mutilated--his tongue and hands cut off to rob him of speech and writing. The brutal mutilation appears early in the book--it is not fully explained until the end.
Julien is a French historian who has studied the poet, Olivier, and the rendition of Manlius' manuscript. He finds solace in his erudition as his county falls to the Nazi occupation. An old school friend who is a collaborator, gives him work as a censor and tolerates Julien's Jewish lover, the artist Julia. In the end, Julien is forced to choose between saving either another school friend in the Resistance or Julia. He chooses Julia, looses her anyway, and commits suicide in a vain attempt to warn his friend.
Summary:This story of one exceptionally accomplished family's discovery of their past and future relationships with Huntington's Disease (HD) is also the story of how the Wexler family changed the cultural narrative of HD for other families at risk for this genetically-transmitted and currently incurable disease. The HD diagnosis of Leonore Wexler (the author's mother) inspires Milton Wexler, a psychologist, to create a major foundation for HD research, which develops critical mass and influence as Leonore Wexler's condition deteriorates, and after her death. The book interweaves the story of the Wexlers' emotional and other negotiations with HD and the story of their efforts to create an HD community comprised of those with active symptoms of HD, family members, advocates, and researchers.
The narrator, Rick, is let out of rehab to live with his older brother, Philip, who is a doctor in Detroit. He will work at a mundane job in Philip's lab. The awkwardness of their encounter slowly evaporates and Rick begins to enjoy life with his family, especially his two young nephews. But he is concerned about Philip's weary appearance, so reminiscent of their father.
It emerges, quickly and to Rick's surprise, that Philip runs an abortion clinic. The clinic is subject to constant harassment by a persistent group of religious, "right-to-lifers," who taunt the doctors, the workers, the patients, and their families at home. Rick struggles to control--even avoid--his feelings; and he tries (unsuccessfully) to suppress the desire to befriend patients.
Eventually, he is reconciled to his new task through an unwelcome fixation on one patient. But angry urges to protect her and his brother well up. After weeks of pent-up rage and fear, he hides a gun, loses control, and begins shooting aggressive protestors. The murder is "nothing"; it's "just like killing babies."
This is a selection of very early Chekhov tales, dating from his years in medical school (1879-1884). These nine examples of the work Chekhov churned out during those years to support himself and his family have never previously been published in English. They are all quite short. Of most interest are "How I Came to Be Lawfully Wed," "A Hypnotic Seance," "Intrigues," "In Autumn," and "At the Pharmacy."
When we view photographs of war-torn bodies, piled-up corpses, or starving children, are we changed? How about the photographer, whether a professional or an amateur, who takes such pictures? Do these photographs teach us about suffering--or do they numb us over time and simply cause us to turn away? In this slim book Sontag re-visits her ideas in "On Photography," published 25 years ago.
Her aim, it seems, is not so much to answer the above questions but to provoke us by her statements, urging us at least to THINK about what happens when suffering is viewed third hand; because after all, she reminds us, we see only what the photographer wanted us to see. When scenes of violence are as close as our morning papers or our TV screens, Sontag's is an important debate.
She also gives a brief history of photo-journalism, from the Crimean and Civil Wars to the almost instantaneous transmission of images from Operation Iraqi Freedom. In chapters that sometimes seem to disagree with one another, she plays the devil's advocate and views the IDEA of photographs of suffering from all directions. Can gruesome photos be artistic? Should they be? And if a war photo is posed--a corpse moved for a better shot or a battle scene restaged to make it more dramatic--is the effect enhanced or decreased? She considers the impact of candid photos versus those technologically manipulated; she discusses how photos, and their impact on us, change when the names of the victims are revealed.