The world’s first experiments with blood transfusion occurred in the mid-1660s in England. The procedure, which was first carried out between dogs, was gruesome: the dogs were tied down, the arteries and veins in their necks opened, and blood transferred from one to another through quills (most likely made from goose feathers) inserted into the […]
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Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Becoming One of the World’s 65 Million Refugees
Majid Hussain keeps having to run.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Liar: A Memoir
“Your memories are already foggy and scrambled at times. And then, they may not even be there anymore.”
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. * * * 1. Manhunting in the Hindu Kush Ryan Devereaux | The Intercept | Oct. 15, 2015 | 20 minutes (5,230 words) The Intercept examines secret […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Doctors Whose Patients Are Already Dead
Rachel Wilkinson goes inside an autopsy lab to understand the process—and the emotional rewards of medicine’s most-maligned specialty.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Class That Teaches Doctors ‘Clinical Empathy’
While empathy courses are rarely required in medical training, interest in them is growing, experts say, and programs are underway at Jefferson Medical College and at Columbia University School of Medicine. Columbia has pioneered a program in narrative medicine, which emphasizes the importance of understanding patients’ life stories in providing compassionate care.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
China’s Booming Domestic Wine Industry
Although eighty-three percent of the wine China drinks is produced domestically, and baijiu grain alcohol is still its favorite alcohol, that’s changing. China is now the world’s fifth largest wine producer. In The California Sunday Magazine, Amy Qin writes about the changing taste of Chinese drinkers, and profiles Ma Qingyun, one producer who is helping […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Understanding the ‘Swiss Cheese Model’ of Error
The human lapses that occurred after the computerized ordering system and pill-dispensing robots did their jobs perfectly well is a textbook case of English psychologist James Reason’s “Swiss cheese model” of error. Reason’s model holds that all complex organizations harbor many “latent errors,” unsafe conditions that are, in essence, mistakes waiting to happen. They’re like a forest […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Science Magazine’s 2013 Spoof Paper Sting Operation
On 4 July, good news arrived in the inbox of Ocorrafoo Cobange, a biologist at the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara. It was the official letter of acceptance for a paper he had submitted 2 months earlier to the Journal of Natural Pharmaceuticals, describing the anticancer properties of a chemical that Cobange had extracted from […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Testosterone Is Helping Power a New Medical Model in America
The emerging popularity of testosterone has opened up whole new business models for entrepreneurial doctors. Chains of shops that provide the hormone have exploded all over the United States, especially across the South. How many millions more men might be willing to try testosterone if it was easy to acquire, and a clinic happened to […]
