Viewpoint
Oct 1999
- Searching MEDLINE using "supernatural" terms and keywords yields the following:
Werewolf — 20 citations
X files — 260 citations
Trick or Treat — 74 citations
Ghost — 1634 citations - The Transylvania Journal of Medicine (1828-1839) was published by the Medical Department of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. The university still exists, but the medical school closed in 1860.
- Division of Personality Studies at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center investigates apparent paranormal phenomena.
- Human sacrifice was widespread as a gift to the gods among the Aztecs in the mid-15th century. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people were sacrificed each year.
- Witchcraft medicine uses a variety of plants to treat various afflictions. For example: Leaves from Thuja occidentalis are burned on coals to purify patients and exorcise evil spirits; Phytolacca americana is used by the Iroquois as an expectorant, emetic, cathartic, and for bewitchment; Smashed Linaria vulgarisplants when taken induces vomiting that can remove bewitching; and Sarracenia purpurea is used by sorcerers—exact use is unspecified.
- October 31 is the birthday of:
John Keats, British lyric poet and physician, who died of tuberculosis at age 25; and
Marian Chace, who founded and championed dance/movement therapy as a profession based on body-mind relationships.
