"Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise"-Incorporating uncertainty in risk analysis from Shakespeare to today.

"Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise."-William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. Although the character Hector warns his fellow Trojans with this line not to engage in war against the Greeks, Shakespeare's works are replete with characters who do not incorporate modest doubt, or any consideration of uncertainty, in their risk decisions. Perhaps Shakespeare was simply a keen observer of human nature. Although risk science has developed tremendously over the last five decades (and scientific inquiry over five centuries), the human mind still frequently defaults to conviction about certain beliefs, absent sufficient scientific evidence-which has effects not just on individual lives, but on policy decisions that affect many. This perspective provides background on the Shakespearean quote in its literary and historical context. Then, as this quote is the theme of the 2023 Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting, we describe how "modest doubt"-incorporating the notion of uncertainty into risk analysis for individual and policy decisions-is still the "beacon of the wise" today.

Changes in the length of speeches in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries: A mixed models approach.

Since 2007 a number of investigators have compiled statistics on the length in words of speeches in plays by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, focusing on a change to shorter speeches around 1600. In this article we take account of several potentially confounding factors in the variation of speech lengths in these works and present a model of this variation in the period 1538-1642 through Linear Mixed Models. We confirm that the mode of speech lengths in English plays changed from nine words to four words around 1600, and that Shakespeare's plays fit this wider pattern closely. We establish for the first time: that this change is independent of authorship, dramatic genre, theatrical company, and the proportion of verse in a play's dialogue; that the chosen time span can be segmented into pre-1597 plays (with high modes), 1597-1602 plays (with mixed high and low modes), and post-1602 plays (with low modes); that some additional secondary modes are evident in speech lengths, at 16 and 24 words, suggesting that the length of a standard blank verse line (around 8 words) is an underlying unit in speech length; and that the general change to short speeches also holds true when the data is viewed through the perspective of the median and the mean. The change in speech lengths is part of a collective drift in the plays towards liveliness and verisimilitude and is evidence of a hitherto hidden constraint on the playwrights: whether or not they were aware of the fact, playwrights as a group were conforming to a structure for the distribution of speech lengths peculiar to the era they were writing in. The authors hope that the full modelling of this variation in the article will help bring this change to the attention of scholars of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Parallel lives in contrast: Scars in the Roman Republic versus English hereditary monarchy.

Scars are a visible part of the political forum in the Roman Republic and in English hereditary monarchy. Coriolanus's scars are celebrated by Romans in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus; in contrast, an absent record of King Richard II's skin ever breaking is part of the collective fiction of hereditary monarchy in Shakespeare's Richard II. For democracy in Rome, the symbology of scarring may be a practical element in ratifying the office of the consul: as a reminder of Rome's experience with the Tarquin kings they had expelled and to avoid the concentration of power in any one man. Consuls would serve only one year, and there were two consuls each year. Scars demonstrated that these politicians were not gods like kings wished to be. In parallel, scar-free, impenetrable skin preserves King Richard II's symbolism as an anointed monarch. Henry Bolingbroke and his son, Prince Hal and future Henry V, face the psychologic and political consequences of stripping the kingship of this aura, by demonstrating that a king's skin can be penetrated on the battlefield by any of his subjects.

Hamlet and radiology.

After I started my radiology training, searching for art in radiology became a passion for me. One of the most concrete examples of my search was a case of CT-guided biopsy we encountered recently. In a patient with metastatic cancer, we searched for the primary lesion. PET/CT showed a focus in the upper lobe of the right lung. During the CT-guided biopsy, this lesion was like a smiling face in shape. The fact that this cute-looking mass was metastatic cancer reminded me of a character from Hamlet. In William Shakespeare's famous work, Prince Hamlet refers to Claudius as a 'smiling villain' and draws attention to the evil behind his smile. In this article, we discuss the similarity of our daily practice with Hamlet through a case.

"A Weight of Carrion Flesh": Measuring Disgust, Shakespearean Mimesis

The present article argues that a Shakespearean poetics of disgust unveils a deeper concern in his work with the moral and social limits of the emotions. The essay first looks into a well-known treatise on physiology and psychology, Thomas Wright’s The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1601, 1604), in relation to Renaissance theories of poetry and Shakespeare’s figurations of disgust in Hamlet (1601), King Lear (1604), The Winter’s Tale(1611) and Timon of Athens (1607). Its aim is to explore the capacity of metaphors and tropes, in both medical and poetic discourse, to test affective intensity, as measuring the passions was considered a necessary condition for moral and social well-being. In Shakespeare’s plays the moral dimension of disgust is often put to question by the aesthetic element inherent in poetic mimesis, which tends to depict the disgusting as a source of pleasure. The essay’s second part turns to The Merchant of Venice (1596) to assess, through the trajectories of disgust that sustain the rivalry be-ween the merchant Antonio and the moneylender Shylock, a second notion of mimesis: the envious emulation of others’ ways of feeling that cultural theorists like René Girard (1991) have signposted as the core of Shakespeare's modernity. In broad-er terms, this study points to the centrality of the these two notions of mimesis for an understanding of the early modern phenomenology of the emotions

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William Shakespeare y la medicina / William Shakespeare and medicine

Si repensamos a escritores que se ocuparon de la medicina, el presente trabajo pretende destacar a William Shakespeare, como un escritor que prácticamente en toda su obra describe en sus personajes problemas de salud de todo tipo. Se harán ciertas referencias de los aspectos médicos desarrollados en la obra del escritor, advirtiendo que son sólo una parte de su extensa producción. (AU)

If we rethink writers who dealt with medicine, this paper intends to highlight William Shakespeare, as a writer who practically describes all kinds of health problems in his characters. Certain references will be made of the medical aspects developed in the writer's work, warning that they are only part of his extensive production. (AU)

Stroke care in 1960 and now-the case of René Maugras.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Georges Simenon accurately describes, in a novel called Les Anneaux de Bicêtre, the clinical picture and course, and the hospital procedures and treatment of a patient with a large left hemispheric stroke, presumably ischemic. METHODS: I here summarize these features and use them as a basis to discuss the marked changes in stroke evaluation and care in the last 60 years. RESULTS/CASE REPORT: A 54-year old Newspaper director was admitted shortly after an acute stroke leading to temporary loss of consciousness, to motor aphasia and right hemiplegia and hypoesthesia. Risk factors included hypertension, a sedentary life, smoking, and a previous episode of cardiac arrhythmia possibly related to congenital heart disease. Evaluation included electroencephalography, cerebral arteriography and cerebrospinal fluid analysis. The acute treatment involved prolonged bed rest in a private room, prophylactic antibiotics, and oral anticoagulation. Smoking was allowed. Prolonged in-hospital rehabilitation followed initial passive physical therapy provided by nurses. After many months, the patient was released with persistent motor problems and a marked psychological change. CONCLUSION: The entire field of acute stroke care has been revolutionized in the last 60 years. Big data management, telemedicine, software, new brain and vascular imaging techniques, biomarkers, robotics etc., are currently in development and again should lead to new and surprising changes during the next decades.

Accounting for Dignity in the Iliad, Ajax, Electra, and the Clinical Encounter: Debating the "End" of Life.

This essay explores as "dignity-denuding" case studies Greek tragic protagonists in order to discuss the ethical problematics involved in "accounting for" such figures: i.e. both diagnosing them and constructing (broken) narratives into which they are fitted. Starting with epic's positive constructions of "aidos" (shame), it contrasts Ajax and Phaedra-each deprived of their dignity by what one psychiatrist called a "violent storm"-as seeking to construct a restorative story of self after trauma. Finally, it argues that Sophocles's Electra's presentation of her "shameful" state has been misread, by both psychiatrists and dramaturgs seeking, perhaps needing?, to impose an inappropriate closure on both her and the play. It is suggestive and significant that this so-called "hysteric" should attract accounts which so impose a diagnosis, impose an "end." The essay concludes that such imposition on anyone who has had their dignity taken away, whether protagonist or patient, is the final indignity.

Bardolph's rosacea: skin disorders that define personality in Shakespeare's plays.

Several popular Shakespearean characters are dramatically portrayed on stage with striking physical appearances caused by medical and dermatologic disorders. Shakespeare's colorful portrayal of their maladies not only helps to entertain audiences but also serves to define the characters' personalities and behavior. Shakespeare himself emphasizes this point in his play Richard III, in which the notorious English king states that his evil nature is a direct result of his hideous spinal deformity. This contribution discusses four other famous Shakespearean characters: Bardolph, who appears to be suffering from rosacea; the Witches of Macbeth, who have beards; Juliet, who has green sickness (chlorosis); and Falstaff, who is morbidly obese. In all of these cases, their skin disorders and medical maladies serve to highlight their underlying nature.

Henrik Ibsen's Battle with Cerebrovascular Disease.

Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) is a Norwegian playwright and poet who is known as the father of modern drama. Ibsen was in good health when he announced at his 70th birthday celebration that he intended to continue writing. His last play, When We Dead Awaken, was published in 1899. Why did Ibsen's dramatic writing come to an end? This chapter presents a medical account of Ibsen's health condition during the last 6 years of his life. It is based on a review of a document written by one of his doctors, Edvard Bull (1845-1925), letters, biographic information, and Ibsen's death certificate. The historical material suggests that he suffered from arteriosclerosis and cerebrovascular disease, and that he suffered several strokes, in 1900, 1901, and 1903. He suffered a paresis in his left foot, expressive aphasia, and a right hemiparesis, and he lost the ability to write. There is no evidence that Ibsen was hospitalised. He received medical treatment and care at his home and at a recreational spa. His health condition was unstable, and it is likely that he suffered from a series of smaller strokes in the last years of his life. Ibsen developed signs of heart failure, and he died peacefully from "paralysis cordis" at his home on May 23rd, 1906.

Hamlet and psychiatry intertwined.

OBJECTIVES:: This article considers selected landmarks in the history of psychiatry and their impact on Hamlet productions, including Burton's Anatomy of Melancholia, Emil Kraepelin's manic-depression, Freud's oedipal complex and R.D. Laing's 'divided self'. Additionally, this article considers the way Shakespeare's Hamlet has influenced the course of psychiatry. CONCLUSION:: The linkages between psychiatry and Hamlet have existed since the 17th century, and perhaps Shakespeare's Hamlet should have a place on every psychiatrist's shelf.