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“I am going to die in the saddle.” Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (1921-2011)   On one of his luckier days, Howard Hughes, the free-wheeling film mogul, chanced upon one Jane Russell, a feisty and strong-willed 19-year-old starlet from Bemidji, Minnesota. Being able to do whatever he wished in his…

“Time himself is bald and therefore to the world’s end will have bald followers.” The Comedy of Errors, I.ii       Will Petty is a remote antecedent, son of a clothier, close friend of Oliver Cromwell, mathematician, inventor of statistics, professor of anatomy, physician, a founder fellow of…

Having binned Enid Blyton on going to boarding school aged 6, I took up with Buchan, Doyle, Household and Haggard for murder and mayhem – with Baroness Orczy for glamour and sex. It was no less than The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy Blakeney himself, who introduced me to the horrors…

For openers, we have COVID vaccines – a choice or three, but not at our discretion. We are, indeed, lucky to have what is on offer, but do remain a touch cynical – none have been adequately tested and tried. At least the brief phases 0 and 1 of clinical…

It should not be any sort of surprise that a new COVID variant has arrived rudely on our doorstep to mess up our sacred Christmases. Although the coronavirus family is not as speedy a mutator as the influenza virus, COVID already has 20,000 close cousins known to science. Whether or…

Smallpox epidemics ravaged the world for millennia. By the 1950s, it is estimated that 50 million cases occurred each year, up to 60% dying from thedisease. “Variolation” against smallpox originated in China using old scabs from healing pustules applied to newly scarified skin. This practice spread to India over…

                References:PMC7494488PMID: 32883151PMID: 32436355 THE WELLMAN CLINIC TRT SCREENTestosterone Replacement TherapyUnderstand the causes of Testosterone Deficiency Syndrome…

We are told that the much anticipated COVID-19 spike has arrived. On 17 October, there were 785 new COVID in-patient admissions to hospitals in England, including 87 to hospitals in London. There were 8 COVID patients occupying beds at Guy’s and St Thomas’ (who care for 95,000 in-patients a year).

It’s smart to admit you don’t know the answer. Sir, Ed Conway (May 29) asks, “how did Britain suffer one of the worst episodes of (Covid-19) in the world?” It might be old hat, but Occam’s razor remains relevant; the simplest solution to a conundrum is often the right solution.

The hairy quina quina tree is a native of the warm, moist slopes of the Andes. In 1532, following the Spanish victory over the Inca empire, Peru became a viceroyalty. The incoming Jesuit missionaries were made aware of the bark of the quina quina tree as a remedy for the…