John Ross
@johnrossmd
Canadian in Boston. Hospitalist. FIDSA. An Seanduine Liath. #IDSky
Cyclospora is a difficult diagnosis. PCR is best; microscopy sucks. In the pre-PCR era, we would often just treat empirically with TMP-SMX if the diagnostic suspicion was high (eg. ongoing outbreak, onset of illness in summer, subacute diarrhea with weight loss over weeks). #IDSky
Bell was at first flattered by the attention he garnered as “the real-life Sherlock Holmes,” but soon came to regret it, especially after Conan Doyle doxxed him in the dedication to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Conan Doyle, who was Bell’s ward clerk as a medical student, used chunks of Bell’s deductions about patients more or less verbatim in the Holmes stories. He would later press Bell for story ideas, although it is not clear whether Doyle actually used them or not
Really enjoyed Sleuth-Hound by @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social, about Joseph Bell, the physician who was the real-life model for Sherlock Holmes, the golden age of Victorian murder, and the birth of forensic medicine. It uncovers a lost chapter in medical history, and it’s great grisly fun to boot!
Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, which has 25 beds, had over 700 positive tests for alpha-gal allergy last year. If you live in Massachusetts, best to get your fill of red meat now
This reads like an Alan Dean Foster novelization of the DSM-III (complimentary)
Splenunculus, or accessory spleen. Present in 20% of people. Can take over the immune function of the spleen if it is damaged by trauma and has to be surgically removed, as happened to this patient.
He is not aging well. He has a diagonal earlobe crease (Frank sign), which is associated with coronary disease and shortened telomeres
Hey, remember the "don't worry your pretty little head about coronavirus" discourse?
R0 was 2.12. Not quite early COVID (3-4), but still impressive for a virus that we don’t usually associate with person-to-person spread
Andes virus, the hantavirus suspected in the cruise ship outbreak, may be transmitted person-to-person, plus the incubation period may be insanely long (up to 40 days). For infection control purposes, you need a literal quarantine
Wastewater data suggests that measles cases are grossly undercounted in the US, perhaps because parents of unvaccinated kids are avoiding care (the confirmed US total for 2025 was 2,288)
gouty arthritis among early modern aristocrats. Gout became a status symbol, suggesting noble blood. Montaigne even claimed that gout was an aphrodisiac of sorts: "[when the legs] do not receive the food that is their due … the genital parts … are fuller, better nourished, and more vigorous." 2/2
Not an expert, but I think this is when the Indo-Europeans (or Proto-Indo-Europeans) started to show up. From Wikipedia:
Did you do anything to get it to fruit? (I have a pineapple I've been growing indoors for a couple of years)
Chick tracts were all over my rural Canadian high school, in which Catholics were a distinct minority. Always thought it was wild that Protestants would brag about their lack of obligation to perform good works!
Sackler Redux: is Big Pharma sowing the seeds of another opioid epidemic? Hospitalists taking money or gifts from opioid makers increased 28-fold between 2020-23, and was associated with 28,000 excess narcotic prescriptions in 2024. Research that my colleague Daniel Smithers presented at #SHM2026
*shakes fist, Yosemite Sam voice* ya long-eared galoot, you’ll pay fer this
0.3% of Icelanders have a novel variety of haplogroup C mitochondrial DNA, possibly of Native American origin. It may derive from a Beothuk woman abducted by Vikings 1000 years ago (the Beothuk were thought to be extinct until recently, when their DNA was found in contemporary Newfoundlanders)
Can't speak for others, but I'll never forgive them for partially eating Gordon Ramsay's dwarf porn star doppelganger