"Try and fall sick .."-the composer, chemist, and surgeon Aleksandr Borodin.
Although Aleksandr Porfir’evič Borodin is considered one of the outstanding Russian composers of the 19th century, he left only a very small volume of musical work. He is particularly renowned for the world-famous “Polovtsian Dances” from the opera “Prince Igor” and for his membership in “The Mighty Handful”. Also noteworthy, aside from the forementioned opera “Prince Igor”, are his three symphonies, two string quartets, and a symphonic poem “In the Steppes of Central Asia”. The reason for his small œuvre is that he considered himself a sunday composer, composing for fun and only in his rare spare time or when he was ill. In fact, he was a professor of chemistry, and chemistry was avowedly his first passion. There were also other fields, besides chemistry, to which he was more committed than composition. Despite this declared priority for chemistry, Aleksandr Borodin is mostly unknown as a chemist to chemists of today, and—much to my regret—even as composer. This surely is not justified, since he is the discoverer of outstanding reactions, although unfortunately at a time when it was uncommon to name reactions after their inventors. This Essay is intended to shed light on all the various facets of Borodin, with a special focus on his chemical work.
The Archetypes of Medicine: A Job Description for the 21st Century
Abstract Medicine is facing an identity crisis, one that might find resolution by revisiting a past rich in multifaceted individuals who transcended the strict definition of ‘doctor’, excelled in other fields of human endeavor, and showed us different ways of being physicians. This paper reviews 12 archetypes that have been part of the profession since its inception, but that, as of late, might have been forgotten. Our goal is to elicit discussion and introspection, with the premise that being a physician ought to be something larger than being a mere technician. If our premise is accepted, then the next step would be to identify those personal traits that made those archetypes possible, so that we can start both recruiting for them and then nurturing them during training.
Beings of nature and reason: mythological masculinities in early 18th-century French art and visual culture
Statement of Originality Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction 11 Chapter One Of Myth and Men 27 Chapter Two In the Likeness of Bacchus 62 Chapter Three Venus and a Satyr 97 Chapter Four Pan and Syrinx 141 Chapter Five Marsyas Flayed by the Order of Apollo 175 Conclusion 212 Catalogue of Images 227 Bibliography 300