Picasso, the prostitutes and the medical student

Medical Humanities students at Imperial will know that I am very fond of showing the 'Head of the Medical Student', a preparatory sketch for one of Picasso's most famous works, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (shown above). I've just heard a snippet on Radio 4's 'Pick of the Week' that suggests a possible explanation for the rather curious conjunction of subjects that informed the work. A medical historian has suggested that the painting might be warning of the dangers of syphilis, particularly as three of the women have mask-like faces -- possibly showing ravages of the disease, especially the deformed nose of the figure on the bottom right. Medical students at the time (early 1900s) would have toured wards of syphilitic patients. If Picasso based his paintings on real subjects, it could explain the association with the student. The medical student didn't retain his identity in the final composition -- he became the 'curtain raiser' on the right-hand side of the painting.

In the National Gallery, you can see Bronzino's An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, which is also thought to have a lurking figure suffering from syphilis (on the left of the picture), as a warning of the dangers of illicit love.

The Song of Los

I've posted before about the little tidbits the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine contains. A welcome break from the horrors of revising glomerulonephritides was this beautiful picture from William Blake's the Song of Los. It depicts a cloud-borne Los leaning over his hammer, looking down at the sun. The authors of the Oxford Handbook felt this was rather more representative of a 'haemotologist hammering a red cell into shape', based on this quote:
"Every space larger than a red globule of man's blood is visionary, and it is created by the Hammer of Los"
[Los was a mythological character, a fallen god, and his hammer represented creative energy.]

Medical Humanities Society AGM

This Thursday 5th April there is an Annual General Meeting for the Medical Humanities Society. The following positions are available:

President
Responsible for union affairs, liaison with BSc events and overall responsibility
Secretary
Responsible for co-running with President, Fresher's Fair and overall responsibility in the President's absence
Treasurer
Responsible for subs and funding
Finance Officer
Responsible for outside sponsorship
Publicity Officer
Responsible for advertising the schedule and poster production
Social Sec
Responsible for outside events, e.g. theatre trips, exhibitions as well as social gatherings.

The meeting will be held at 7:30pm in room S303A in the new Humanities area, Sherfield Building (3rd floor), Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus.
Directly afterwards we will be watching The Motorcycle Diaries, which chronicles Che Guevara's travels around South America whilst he was a medical student.
If you can't make it on Thursday and would like to stand for a position, you can leave your email address below and I will contact you.

surgical poetry

The Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the ASGBI, is not known for its contribution to medical humanities. Things may change however in this most serious-minded and conservative of organisations. First the "wives' social programme" was changed to the "accompanying persons' social programme" at its Annual General Meeting, which is taking place this year at the old Manchester Central station now re-done as a conference centre. It used to be part scientific update (if you got round to going into the lectures), or part/all a nice social jolly for all the old boys to meet up and boast about their prowess this year. It continues in this vein, with its annual golf competition a prized prize, and the Annual Dinner a famed spot for networking and observing well-known figures undone by the old medical school poison. However, winds of change are slowly whispering. In 2004 an art and photographic display was introduced. By surgeons and their partners. Of course, being surgeons, they had to have a competition. I don't know what happened at that one, but it was dropped for a year. However, the photography competition was reinstated in 06 with a poetry competition which is on again this year.
The winning entries in the poetry were of a rather familiar joke variety, the kind of joke my 4 year old would appreciate, the "Colonoscopy Anthem" and the "Ode to a Pitts S2A"
http://www.asgbi.org.uk/edinburgh/pages/poetrycomp.htm
However, the winning photograph was poignant and beautiful
http://www.asgbi.org.uk/edinburgh/images/siteimages/waitformelarge.jpg
so there is some hope that the poetry will get taken more seriously in time. Perhaps photography is just less embarrassing a prize to win.
Sadly, it is only open to Members of the ASGBI or associated societies, or anyone attending the Annual Meeting (at a cost of approx £200 a day. So fairly exclusive, then) - but it is there. If you are interested and fulfil the above requirements, the closing date is Monday. It would be nice if they opened it to medical students as well. Perhaps the quality of entry would improve...
http://www.asgbi.org.uk/manchester/pages/competitions/photographic.htm
and the poetry http://www.asgbi.org.uk/manchester/pages/competitions/poetry.htm
There is a serious category of entry and a humourous one. I hope for some inspiration over the weekend. Perhaps one should write it first before deciding whether it is funny, or leave that to the judges (who are they? what poetry experts have they hidden in their ranks?) Maybe that is why they have said categories. They wish the author to make that judgement and save them from the excruciating situation of awarding the humourous prize to a serious entrant.

I wonder how many Annual General Meetings we are away from having this collection of surgeons hear some seriously well-written poetry to leaven their/our diet of acrid coffee, hangovers and information overload? Mr Abse, fancy a trip to Manchester?

Dr Freud Will See You Now Mr Hitler

As a bed-wetting, traumatised child, Adolf Hitler was referred by his provincial doctor to a young psychologist specialising in children's traumas in Vienna. His name was Sigmund Freud. Hitler never went. But how different might the history of the 20th century have been if he had?
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran present this exciting study of the relationship that develops between Freud, his daughter, Anna, and the 20-year-old Hitler. Toby Jones plays Adolf Hitler, with Alan Corduner as Freud and Sophie Winkleman as Anna Freud.

You can listen on Radio 4 at 2.30pm tomorrow

Modern medicine

A friend of mine found this pair of poems in a book on Comm Skills. You'll probably know the first, but the second is obviously inspired by the government's views on how the NHS should be: modern, multi-disciplinary and, most importantly, meeting targets.

WH Auden:
Give me a doctor partridge plump,
Short in the leg and broad in the rump,
An endomorph with gentle hands,
Who'll never make absurd demands,
That I abandon all my vices,
Or pull a long face in a crisis,
But with a twinkle in his eye,
Will tell me that I have to die.

Response by Marie Campkin:
Give me a doctor underweight,
Computerised and up to date,
A businessman who understands,
Accountancy and target bands.
Who demonstrates sincere devotion
To audit and to health promotion -
But when my outlook's for the worse
Refers me to the practice nurse.

Short story competition

The Lancet is running a short story competition for which medicine should be the inspiration. More details here. The deadline is 10 May, and the recommended length is 2,500 words. If you don't get your story published, we'd be happy to feature your entry right here on our blog!