medical

medical

Advances in Surgery

Advances in Surgery

, , Library Resources, Matt Dilworth
On December 25, 1809 surgery took a pioneering step forward.  In December of that year, forty-seven-year-old Jane Crawford of Motley Glenn, Kentucky seemed to be pregnant, although she thought she was too old to have more children.  Her stomach grew and grew – and kept growing, beyond nine months.  At the recommendation of her local doctors, she called upon a physician named Ephraim McDowell, who lived sixty miles away, in Danville.  He came – a two or three day journey by horse – and diagnosed her as having an ovarian tumor rather than a baby.  Realizing that if it were left to grow, she faced a certain, slow, and agonizing death, she asked for it to be removed, and was … Continued
Protection from Hepatitis A

Protection from Hepatitis A

, , Library Resources, Matt Dilworth, outreach
Starting this summer, Wayne County has seen a meteoric rise in cases of hepatitis A this year, now totaling over 100 infections.  This makes us the leader in the state (most Indiana counties have less than five cases a year), and one of the top ten counties in the entire country – but most of those other counties have populations of hundreds of thousands or even millions.  We have only 70,000.  And there have been several prominent cases – a worker at Casey’s General Store in Centerville and a food preparer at No. 9 Grill in Cambridge City.  Scares like this have prompted over 2,000 vaccinations in the county. Hepatitis A is a disease of the liver, and in some … Continued
Disease Research

Disease Research

, Library Resources, Matt Dilworth
May is Hepatitis Awareness Month, but whether you have a research interest in Hepatitis or in any infectious disease, the library is the place to go for information.  We all do some of our research on the Internet – even when we know there are better choices.  But with medical topics, that’s a particularly bad idea.  While there are a handful of trustworthy sites on the free web – things like PubMed, the Mayo Clinic, and the Center for Disease Control – there is an inordinate amount of garbage out there.  And when it comes to health, believing it can be dangerous.   Of course, our databases are rich with reliable scholarly articles, and choices like Health Source, MedLine, Biomedical … Continued