Health
Discover facts about health. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Health
Tiny balloons opened blocked arteries
Instead of reaching a narrowed artery through open-heart surgery, doctors could thread in a thin catheter and inflate a tiny balloon at the blockage. The…
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He could improve at a task without remembering practicing it
After surgery for epilepsy, Henry Molaison struggled to form new lasting memories. Yet he could improve at skills such as tracing a shape while watching his…
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The disease outbreak caused by a diet of cornmeal
People who lived mainly on cheap cornmeal could develop pellagra because that diet lacked enough niacin, or vitamin B3. To challenge the belief that the…
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The birth-control device whose string spread infection
The Dalkon Shield’s string was made of many fine strands, creating tiny spaces that could draw fluid upward. Bacteria could travel along that multifilament…
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The worm linked to a mysterious childhood epilepsy
Nodding syndrome involves repeated head-nodding episodes and can include seizures, because the illness disrupts normal brain activity. It has been linked to…
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The Byzantine physician who wrote about women's health
In her Byzantine medical treatise, Metrodora wrote about women’s health through practical treatments, surgery, and anatomical observation. The range matters:…
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Psychiatrists once used camphor to trigger seizures
Ladislas Meduna noticed that epilepsy and schizophrenia seemed to occur rarely in the same people and wondered whether provoking a seizure might affect…
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The weight-loss surgery that caused liver failure
The jejunoileal bypass sent food past most of the small intestine, sharply limiting how much the body could absorb. That could produce weight loss, but it…
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A Victorian doctor patented ice bags for the spine
John Chapman's 1864 design put cooling bags along the back, based on his theory that changing temperature there could control circulation and treat illness.…
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How a hotel cooling system caused a deadly outbreak
Legionella pneumophila traveled in fine droplets released by the hotel’s cooling towers. Once breathed into the lungs, the bacteria caused pneumonia in people…
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Temporal-lobe seizures trigger intense religious obsession
For a small number of people with temporal-lobe epilepsy, Gastaut-Geschwind syndrome can include persistent religious preoccupation and compulsive writing.…
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The cooking oil sold as olive oil that killed hundreds
In 1981, industrial rapeseed oil that had been denatured with aniline was sold in Spain as olive oil. People who consumed the mislabeled oil developed a…
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The doctor who tried treating HIV with malaria
Malaria causes bouts of fever, and Heimlich believed deliberately provoking that fever might help treat HIV or cancer. He infected patients with malaria in…
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Medical dictionaries once called homosexuality a disease
Older editions of Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary labeled homosexuality a psychiatric disease. That classification reflected the social biases of its…
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How PGAD causes arousal without desire
PGAD can produce unwanted physical sensations of genital arousal even when a person has no sexual desire. The bodily signals and the person’s feelings don’t…
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Salk's polio vaccine trained immunity with an inactivated virus
The vaccine used virus particles treated so they could not reproduce, while retaining features the immune system could recognize. That offered a way to…
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A gunshot wound gave a doctor a direct view into digestion
Alexis St. Martin survived an 1822 shooting with a permanent opening into his stomach. William Beaumont used it to observe digestion and retrieve food…
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Correcting low sodium too quickly can paralyze you
When sodium has been severely low for a while, brain cells adapt by adjusting the particles that help control their water balance. Raise sodium too quickly…
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At 96, Henry Heimlich helped a choking neighbor using his own technique
In 2016, the doctor intervened when a woman choked during dinner at his Cincinnati senior-living residence. The maneuver that bore his name had been promoted…
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A newborn's Apgar score is a snapshot taken twice
At one and five minutes after birth, five signs—including heart rate, breathing and muscle tone—receive scores adding up to ten. Comparing the assessments…
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The doctor behind Down syndrome built a theater for his patients
John and Mary Langdon Down established Normansfield in 1868 and later added an elaborate entertainment hall. Performances, music, and dances formed part of…
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The black urine that revealed a genetic disease
In alkaptonuria, a missing enzyme prevents the body from fully breaking down a substance called homogentisic acid. It can build up in urine and darken when…
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Minamata’s poisoned cats danced before humans fell ill
Once methylmercury from the plant entered the bay, it passed into fish and then into the cats that ate them. Neurological damage caused the erratic movements…
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Obsolete medical diseases hidden in print
“Drapetomania” made a political judgment look like a medical one: enslaved people who wanted freedom were labeled ill for resisting captivity. The same old…
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