Coffee beans – image from Wikimedia Commons Previously on this blog, we have glanced at treatises on grapes, strawberries and spaghetti & meatballs as metaphors in medicine. The bean is no less important medically (besides being associated with flatulence): Bean-shaped G-spot Bean-shaped kidney Coffee bean sign BONUS: Under the microscope various entities resemble beans, here is an example […]
About: Gwinyai Masukume
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- Cuisine Research Institute (CRI) GRAPE (Group for Research and Advancement of Palatable Eponyms)
Posts by Gwinyai Masukume:
Why do pathologists see spaghetti and meatballs?
Spaghetti and meatballs – image from Wikimedia Commons Metaphors are important in education – they facilitate learning and recall. Food-related medical metaphors are no different. Beyond their educational value, some researchers (“The ‘Gourmet’ Pathologist“, Anna Batistatou , V. Zolota and CD Scopa. Int J Surg Pathol, 2000 8(4):341-342.) have pondered if food-related medical terms reflect the attitudes and peculiarities […]
Culinary medical terms for human feces
Various foods are in contemporary use as analogies for the stool (human feces) found in certain medical conditions. Below is a selection of such food-related medical stool metaphors: butter stool – of excess fecal fat pea-soup stool – of typhoid fever red-currant jelly stool – of intussusception rice-water stool – of cholera BONUS: Pea-soup stool can […]
Tumbler test: a culinary medical term
The stethoscope [pictured here right] has almost become synonymous with medical practice – it is useful particularly for listening to patients’ chests and abdomens. A perhaps less well known piece of ‘medical equipment’ is the tumbler (drinking glass) [pictured here below]. Pressing a transparent tumbler against a rash and noting whether the rash fades or not […]