The richest woman in Elizabethan England, Bess of Hardwick, conceived the idea that unless she kept building houses, she would die. Hence the two Hardwick Halls on a hilltop in […]
Latest articles
Plant of the Week: Alcea rosea
As we English GPs drive down dreary town streets on warm afternoons, our hearts are suddenly lifted by the sight of tall waving mallow flowers in a wonderful variety of […]
Round one figures released
The Department of Health has announced the figures showing how many junior doctor posts in England have been filled following the first round of MTAS. But it fails to spell […]
Fungus of the Week: Agaricus augustus
July in England is not usually a good time for fungus-hunting, though the season gets under way around now in Poland, with special steam-hauled mushroom-picking trains taking the populace to […]
Ann Intern Med 3 July 2007 Vol 147
The current fashion in Britain is to put every patient who is thought to need a statin on 40mg of simvastatin. Atorvastatin is a more powerful drug, weight for weight, […]
Lancet 7 July 2007 Vol 370
This week’s Lancet is devoted to HIV-1 and in particular to the effect of new anti-retroviral drugs in treatment-experienced patients. […]
BMJ 7 July 2007 Vol 335
Cervical cytology is a topic I find almost unendurably boring, and how some people can spend their lives looking at cervical smears passes all understanding. […]
NEJM 5 July 2007 Vol 357
The success rate of in-vitro fertilisation in women over the age of 35 is about 35% in this Dutch series, provided there is no tinkering with the embryo to remove […]
JAMA 4 July 2007 Vol 298
As a substance both pleasurable and mildly addictive, chocolate is a natural cause of anxiety to health puritans. The fault lies with the British chocolate manufacturers (themselves of Puritan, or […]
JAMA 27 Jun 2007 Vol 297
I grew up a weedy kid, but at least that was better than being a fat kid. There were not many of those in the northern England of my early […]