E33 King Lear by William Shakespeare

E37 excerpts from Arabian Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane

Description:
An immersive reading of excerpts from Arabian Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane with reflection on leprosy, the ideal clinician and cutaneous treatments.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/

Work:

The Story of King Yoonan and the Sage Dooban from The Thousand and One Nights attributed to Scheherazade with translation by Edward William Lane.

in former times, in the country of the Persians, a monarch who was called King Yoonán, possessing great treasures and numerous forces, valiant, and having troops of every description; but he was afflicted with leprosy, which the physicians and sages had failed to remove; neither their potions, nor powders, nor ointments were of any benefit to him; and none of the physicians was able to cure him. At length there arrived at the city of this king a great sage, stricken in years, who was called the sage Doobán: he was acquainted with ancient Greek, Persian, modern Greek, Arabic, and Syriac books, and with medicine and astrology, both with respect to their scientific principles and the rules of their practical applications for good and evil; as well as the properties of plants, dried and fresh, the injurious and the useful: he was versed in the wisdom of the philosophers, and embraced a knowledge of all the medical and other sciences. […]

He […] hired a house, in which he deposited his books, and medicines, and drugs. Having done this, he selected certain of his medicines and drugs, and made a goff-stick, with a hollow handle, into which he introduced them; after which he made a ball for it, skillfully adapted; and on the following day, after he had finished these, he went again to the King, and kissed the ground before him, and directed him to repair to the horse-course, and to play with the ball and goff-stick. The King, attended by his Emeers and Chamberlains and Wezeers, went thither, and, as soon as he arrived there, the sage Doobán presented himself before him, and handed to him the goff-stick, saying, Take this goff-stick, and grasp it thus, and ride along the horse-course, and strike the ball with it with all thy force, until the palm of thy hand and thy whole body become moist with perspiration, when the medicine will penetrate into thy hand, and pervade thy whole body; and when thou hast done this, and the medicine remains in thee, return to thy palace, and enter the bath, and wash thyself, and sleep: then shalt thou find thyself cured: and peace be on thee.

References:

1001 Nights: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34206/34206-h/34206-h.htm

Leprosy: https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/index.html

Grzybowski A, Nita M. Leprosy in the Bible. Clin Dermatol. 2016 Jan-Feb;34(1):3-7. doi: 10.1016/j.clindermatol.2015.10.003. Epub 2015 Nov 17.

Eather N, Wade L, Pankowiak A, Eime R. The impact of sports participation on mental health and social outcomes in adults: a systematic review and the 'Mental Health through Sport' conceptual model.

Oja P, Titze S, Kokko S, Kujala UM, Heinonen A, Kelly P, Koski P, Foster C. Health benefits of different sport disciplines for adults: systematic review of observational and intervention studies with meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2015 Apr;49(7):434-40.

E36 Spring and All Poem XVI by William Carlos Williams

Description:
An immersive reading of Spring and All Poem XVI by William Carlos Williams with reflection on signs of illness, jaundice, liver failure, onomatopoeia and poetic apostrophe.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/

Work:
Spring and All, Poem XVI
By William Carlos Williams

O tongue
licking
the sore on
her netherlip

O toppled belly

O passionate cotton
stuck with
matted hair

elysian slobber
from her mouth
upon
the folded handkerchief

I can’t die

--moaned the old
jaundiced woman
rolling her
saffron eyeballs

I can’t die
I can’t die

References:

Spring and All:
https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/0881/Spring%2520and%2520All-WCW.pdf
or
https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781513283029

William Carlos Williams: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams

Poetic Apostrophe: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/apostrophe-literary-device-meaning

Baughn RE, Musher DM. Secondary syphilitic lesions. Clin Microbiol Rev. 2005 Jan;18(1):205-16.

Health Quality Ontario. In-home care for optimizing chronic disease management in the community: an evidence-based analysis. Ont Health Technol Assess Ser. 2013 Sep 1;13(5):1-65.

NB Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore

E35 A Field of Trilliums by Lori-Anne Noyahr

Description:
An immersive reading of A Field of Trilliums by Lori-Anne Noyahr first published in Ars Medica in 2023 with reflection on brain death, anesthesia, liminality and sounds.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/

Work:
Noyahr, L.-A. (2023). A Field of Trilliums. Ars Medica, 17(2), 3 pp. Retrieved from https://ars-medica.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/2131

References:

De Georgia MA. History of brain death as death: 1968 to the present. J Crit Care. 2014 Aug;29(4):673-8.

E34 Sippokni Sia by Winnie Lewis Gravitt

Description:
An immersive reading of Sippokni Sia by Winnie Lewis Gravitt with reflection on the Choctaw Indian Tribe, code switching, aging and the grandmother effect.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/

Work:
Sippokni Sia
Winnie Lewis Gravitt

I am old, Sippokni sia.
Before my eyes run many years,
Like panting runners in a race.
Like a weary runner, the years lag;
Eyes grow dim, blind with wood smoke;
A handkerchief binds my head,
For I am old. Sippokni sia.

Hands, once quick to weave and spin;
Strong to fan the tanchi;
Fingers patient to shape dirt bowls;
Loving to sew hunting shirt;
Now, like oak twigs twisted.
I sit and rock my grandson.
I am old. Sippokni sia.

Feet swift as wind o’er young cane shoots;
Like stirring leaves in ta falla dance;
Slim like rabbits in leather shoes;
Now moves like winter snows,
Like melting snows on the Cavanaugh.
In the door I sit, my feet in spring water.
I am old. Sippokni sia.

Black like crow’s feather, my hair.
Long and straight like hanging rope;
My people proud and young.
Now like hickory ashes in my hair,
Like ashes of old camp fire in rain.
Much civilization bow my people;
Sorrow, grief and trouble sit like blackbirds on fence.
I am old. Sippokni sia hoke.

References:

Winnie Lewis Gravitt: https://poets.org/poet/winnie-lewis-gravitt

https://dictionary.choctawnation.com/word/

Coall DA, Hertwig R. Grandparental investment: past, present, and future. Behav Brain Sci. 2010 Feb;33(1):1-19; discussion 19-40.

E33 King Lear by William Shakespeare

Description:
An immersive reading of King Lear by William Shakespeare with reflection on dementia, storms and caregivers.

Website:
https://anauscultation.wordpress.com/

Work:

King Lear by William Shakespeare Act 3 Scene 1 lines 1-20

KENT Who’s there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMAN One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT I know you. Where’s the King?

GENTLEMAN

Contending with the fretful elements;

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curlèd waters ’bove the main,

That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,

Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage

Catch in their fury and make nothing of;

Strives in his little world of man to outscorn

The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.

This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,

The lion and the belly-pinchèd wolf

Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs

And bids what will take all.

KENT But who is with him?

GENTLEMAN

None but the Fool, who labors to outjest

His heart-struck injuries.


References:

King Lear (electronic): https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/king-lear/read/

King Lear (print): https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781501118111

NB: Tattered Cover is a local Denver bookstore

Ottilingam S. The psychiatry of King Lear. Indian J Psychiatry. 2007 Jan;49(1):52-5.