Chicken soup for the skin!

Chicken soup is a worldwide dish used in folk medicine to treat respiratory infections. In ancient and medieval times, it was used to treat leprosy. Anecdotally, it is claimed that chicken soup promotes healthy skin because it is rich in collagen and hyaluronic acid. One clinical study found that consumption of chicken soup by human individuals increased skin elasticity and decreased facial pigmentation. More research is needed to confirm these benefits and better define the role chicken soup consumption might have in promoting healthy, youthful skin.

The Avicenna lunar crater.

Fifty years ago, in 1970, a lunar crater was named in honor of Avicenna, one of the most influential physicians of the Medieval period. His encyclopedic work, The Canon of Medicine, attempted to codify all medical knowledge including dermatology. This contribution provides a brief overview of Avicenna, his contributions to medicine and dermatology, and the lunar crater named after him.

Along came a spider: Medicine's most famous spider eponyms.

Spiders have long been admired for the beauty of their webs. They are celebrated in popular culture as well as in medical eponyms. This contribution provides the historical background for three spider-related eponyms: nevus araneus (spider angioma), arachnodactyly, and the arachnoid mater. Nevus araneus was first named and described by Sir Erasmus Wilson in 1842. Arachnodactyly was described in 1896 by Antoine Marfan using the term pattes d'araignée, which means spider legs. In 1902, Emile Charles Achard proposed the term arachnodactyly for this clinical finding. The arachnoid mater had been named in 1699 by Frederik Ruysch. The clinical management of spider bites from the only two dangerous venomous spiders within the United States, the black widow spider (Latrodectus mactans) and the brown recluse spider (Loxosceles reclusa), is reviewed.