The Eyes Have It

snarkout: liver and lights

Nice post (and I'm not just saying that) from snarkout regarding the way Vesalius (see here, here and here) began the slow process of extracting medical learning from the grasp of entrenched Galenism.

"Vesalius helped usher in the Age of Reason, the Europe of Galileo and Newton, by the claim that people should believe their own eyes and not what they read."

A Weekend Miscellany (new feature)

• Pew Internet and American Life Project report outlines the way Americans search for health information on the web. Interesting results, especially when you consider the research showing that most people base their estimate of a medical site's credibility mainly on how credible it looks (Reference for this to follow). [link]




• UCSD Researchers Demonstrate Enhanced Ability To Divide Visual Attention [link] [thanks Mr. Cieciel]



• Perfect for your site's sidebar. TEHI now has a button available at Taylor's Steal These Buttons. [link]



• Noninvasive optical biopsies on the horizon. A new imaging technique that could lead to optical biopsies without removal of tissue is being reported by biophysical scientists at Cornell and Harvard universities. [link]



• Anyone know how to get the bullet from an "li" tag to show up new to an "img" with left alignment? Please let me know.

American Gallery of Psychiatric Art

A collection of powerful images taken from almost 40 years of pharmaceutical print advertising. The thumbnail to the left is from a 1962 ad for the MAO inhibitor nardil.

[via Dublog]

Autopsy: You Oughta Be In Pictures

TEHI often concerns itself with sharing examples of images being used to communicate more effectively than mere words or numbers alone can. Here's an example of words (and yes a few pictures as well) working to make images (at least in the movies) more accurate and hopefully more powerful. The Routine Autopsy, The Procedure Related in Narrative Form, A Guide for Screenwriters and Novelists by Ed Uthman, MD. (Because everyone loves a good story.)

[via Autopsy Report]

Medicine Man: The Forgotten Museum of Henry Wellcome

From the site's about page:

"Henry Wellcome was a man of many parts: businessman, philanthropist, patron of science and pioneer of aerial photography. He also created one of the world's great museum collections: a huge stockpile of evidence about the universal interest in "the preservation of health and life".

One hundred and fifty years after his birth, this exhibition reunites a cross-section of extraordinary objects from his forgotten museum, ranging from diagnostic dolls to Japanese sex aids, and from Napoleon's toothbrush to George III's hair. It also features 'The Phantom Museum' - a specially commissioned film by the Brothers Quay.

'Medicine Man: The forgotten museum of Henry Wellcome', a Wellcome Trust exhibition produced in close collaboration with the British Museum, is curated by Ken Arnold and Danielle Olsen and designed by Caruso St John."

"Mapping New Territory"

A letter I liked, published in the Rants & Raves section of the most recent Wired:

"What graphics demand in space, they return in time and impact ("The New World," Wired 11.06). Seeing information directly conveys ideas immediately and memorably, showing relative scale in creative ways. The beautiful illustrations in the Ultimate Atlas present fact as art, but they are no less relevant for that. If anything, they make the understanding of complex concepts more widely accessible, creating a new form of literacy. These are flowers, evolved to attract worker bees to knowledge. Go forth, learn, and pollinate others."
Kevin McLeod
Mount Dora, Florida

Gone Fishin'

Gone Fishin'. Will be back in about a week.

Health InfoDesign

Although this site hasn't been updated in quite a while, it's still worth a quick visit both for the resources it offers as well as for its clean design (which manages to not look dated even though it has to be close to two years old). Offered by Michael B. Moore, a user interface design consultant, the site "is dedicated to examining, discussing and providing a resource for user interface designers, information architects and usability experts working in the field of healthcare systems."

The two most interesting resources are Principles which list "the UI principles that are issues in healthcare design, not necessarily general design principles that all user interfaces should follow" and Top 10 Problems which "lists the most frequent problems encountered in doing UI development for healthcare providers."

There's also an cogent critique of drkoop.com as it existed in November, 1999. It's interesting to note that some of the issues pointed out here still appear on the drkoop.com site. This was to be the first of a series of critiques but, unfortunately, Mr. Moore didn't follow up on developing this potentially valuable resource.