Tag: Shakespeare
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Scientific Gynaecology
Damn! They did it again –just when I thought I’d finally got it straight about why HDL was the ‘good’ cholesterol and how beneficial it is, they changed it on me. Well, modified it, I guess. Lipoproteins are molecules that carry fats (lipids like cholesterol and triglycerides) to and from cells in the body. HDL…
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Facing up to the Medicine
There is something magical about a face. It is at the same time familiar and yet mysterious. And although it contains many parts with disparate functions, these are somehow secondary. We see the face as a unit, then judge the components; it is a face first, and only subsequently an aggregation of details. It is…
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Medical Revisionism
Words -that’s all they are: sounds that by their very presence magically communicate meaning. They are more than mere noise or background. They are not the wind rustling through the leaves, nor the sounds of a frog in a pond; in a way, they are entities that resolve uncertainty, and in as much as they…
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What’s in a Word?
Alexithymia. Ever heard of it? Me neither. It sounds like one of those words you’d get in a national spelling bee when they’re trying to off you. Fortunately it has a rather pedestrian etymology: ‘a’ meaning ‘without’; ‘lexis’ –speech, or words; and ‘thymos’ – soul, or emotions. In other words: no words for feelings. Hmm……
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The Body’s Clock
Scientists –well, all of us- have been suspicious about the health risks of shift work for a long time now. Perhaps there is a reason buried somewhere in our genes that suggests night is for sleeping and daytime for working. Originally, no doubt, it was because it was difficult to see things in the dark…
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Speak up, eh?
In the often dull Gestalt of Canadian politics, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish background from foreground, but every so often a light goes on and shadows spring to life. Shadows we would fain deny, yet dare not, to paraphrase Macbeth as he waits for battle. It is, perhaps, an apt example given that it…
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Can Anyone Laugh?
Frailty, thy name is woman, Hamlet said, upset about his mother’s behaviour. Perhaps Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc had bad memories of the play. In a recent speech on moral corruption in Turkey, he is quoted as saying that : “Chastity is so important. It is not only a name. It is an ornament…
musingsonwomenshealth.com 