Carousing will catch up with you

The Huns were a nomadic people who are though to have originated in Central Asia.  By 370 AD they had migrated into Europe.  They formed a unified empire for the first time under the rule of a single King in 447.  That King's name is still synonomous with brutality today - Attila the Hun.

Attila ruled from 433 until his death in 453.  Orginally his brother Bleda ruled half the tribe and Atilla the other, until Bleda's death in 447 when Atilla became the sole King.

 

(Public domain image sourced from Wikipedia)

Attila was known as Flagellum Dei by the Romans (Scourge of God).  He spent much of his reign waging war across Europe, burning and pillaging in his wake.  His actions are partially behind the fall of the Roman Empire.  At its height Attila's empire stretched from the Ural river to the Rhine.

However it's Attila's death which is of interest today.

A bridge too far

Your correspondent recently went on a journey to the land of the long white cloud.  During that sojourn she observed the following historic bridge and heard a story about a nurse named Edith Cavell.

What does a nurse have to do with a bridge? Read on..

Staying Abreast

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the world's first silicon breast augmentation.

For almost a hundred years doctors, and patients, had been experimenting with various ways to change the size and shape of breasts.  The first recorded case of a breast implant in the literature was undertaken by a German surgeon named Vincenz Czerny, who transplanted a benign fat tumour (known as a lipoma) to reduce asymmetry after removing a tumour from a woman's breast.  Since that time various methods of using the patient's own tissue have been tried, mainly at the time of surgery to effect a reconstruction. 

Jay's Jutting Jaw

Jay Leno’s distinctively large chin has been something of a trademark for the comedian. The title of his 1996 autobiography is ‘Leading with my Chin’.   However you may be surprised to learn that the Tonight show host’s distinctively large mandible is most likely the result of an inherited genetic condition.

Obstetrics and WWI

As we come to the end of Remembrance Day for another year, I found myself reflecting on a medical history story that directly relates to the onset of WWI.  

The brachial plexus is a group of nerves which supplies the arm and hand.  They run from the spinal cord and through the neck into the arm.  As a result they are unfortunately susceptible to trauma during the birth process.  Particularly this can occur during an obstetric emergency where a baby's head becomes trapped during birth, either from the shoulders being wedged under the mother's pubic bone or an obstructed breech (feet first) birth. The subsequent mechanical manipulation required to free the baby is the usual cause. However when certain death is the alternative - sometimes a brachial plexus palsy is the lesser of two traumas.

Unfortunately, Kaiser Wilhelm did not see it this way.