ietsnut / Meaning in Medicine/Poison

Read my essay here: https://ietsnut.com/wp-content/uploads/download.pdf

My rare Mediterranean chronic sickness, Behçet’s disease, is primarily treated with Colchicine. While mostly invisible to the naked eye, as it affects auto-immune functions. My primary medication, Colchicine, was FDA approved in 2009 and is now widely used. In this essay various connections between different branches of science will be made to make the invisible visible. Interdisciplinary connections can provide new perspective. We depart from Colchicum autumnale, commonly known as autumn crocus, a toxic flowering plant containing colchicine. We arrive with the knowledge that medicine has an intrinsic meaning precisely because of poison. The therapeutic window between life (medicine) and death (poison) is a linear process, a gradient instead of a threshold. While we cannot determine a lethal dose with empiricism alone, creative abduction in combination with science may provide new insights and recognizable patterns.

Depiction of the original sin by Jan Brueghel de Oude and Peter Paul Rubens.
The poisoned apple from Snow White.
An image of gout, drawn by the famous English satirical artist, James Gillray (1757-1815).
House M.D. and the use of creative abduction.
Bartender: The Right Mix – A game about finding the right mix and doses of drinks.
The assassin’s teapot can poor 4 drinks (null, one, two or one + two), by utilizing air pressure.
In Tightrope (2015), Rasul Abakarov, a tightrope walker, crossed a canyon in the Caucausus Mountains carrying copies of works from the Dagestani Museum of Fine Art.
The Death of Socrates – Jacques-Louis David, 1787