In his great book “Cutting For Stone”, Abraham Verghese describes one of his main characters, Dr. Marion Stone, as being obsessed with a certain aspect of the physical exam. Dr. Stone, as the dictatorial chief of surgery at a major Boston teaching hospital, has drilled into his residents the necessity of performing a rectal exam… Continue reading Let’s Get Physical
The great Greek physician and teacher Hippocrates (460 BC-370 BC) described several kinds of cancer, referring to them with the Greek word "carcinos", meaning crab or crayfish. This name comes from the appearance of the cut surface of a solid malignant tumor, with the "veins stretched out on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet, whence it derives its name."