Historically Speaking: Broken Hearts and How to Heal Them

Modern medicine confirms what people have known for thousands of years: heartbreak is more than a metaphor.

The Wall Street Journal

September 30, 2023

A mere generation ago, “heartbreak” was an overused literary metaphor but not an actual medical event. The first person to recognize it as a genuine condition was a Japanese cardiologist named Hikaru Sato. In 1990, Dr. Sato identified the curious case of a female patient who displayed the symptoms of a heart attack while testing negative for it. He named it “Takotsubo Syndrome” after noticing that the left ventricle of her heart changed shape during the episode to resemble a takotsubo, a traditional octopus-trap. A Japanese study in 2001 not only confirmed Sato’s identification of a sudden cardio event that mimics a heart attack but also highlighted the common factor of emotional distress in such patients. It had taken the medical profession 4,000 years to acknowledge what poets had been saying all along: Broken Heart Syndrome is real.

The heart has always been regarded as more than just a pump. The Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia, now part of modern Iraq, understood it performed a physical function. But they also believed it was the source of all emotion, including love, happiness and despair. One of the first known references to “heartbreak” appears in a 17th century B.C. clay tablet containing a copy of “Atrahasis,” a Babylonian epic poem that parallels the Old Testament story of Noah’s Ark. The words “heart” and “break” are used to describe Atrahasis’s pain at being unable to save people from their imminent doom.

The heart also played a dual mind-body role in ancient Chinese medicine. There was a great emphasis on the importance of emotional regulation, since an enraged or greedy heart was believed to affect other organs. The philosopher Confucius used the heart as an analogy for the perfect relationship between the king and his people: Harmony in the latter and obedience from the former were both essential.

Heart surgeon Daniel Hale Williams. ILLUSTRATION BY THOMAS FUCHS

In the West, the early Catholic Church adopted a more top-down approach to the heart and its emotional problems. Submitting to Christ was the only treatment for what St. Augustine described as the discomfort of the unquiet heart. Even then, the avoidance of heart “pain” was not always possible. For the 16th-century Spanish saint Teresa of Avila, the agonizing sensation of being pierced in the heart was the necessary proof she had received God’s love.

By Shakespeare’s era, the idea of dying for love had become a cliché, but the deadly effects of heartbreak were accepted without question. Grief and anguish kill several of Shakespeare’s characters, including Lady Montague in “Romeo and Juliet,” King Lear, and Desdemona’s father in “Othello.” Shame drives Enobarbus to will his heart to stop in “Antony and Cleopatra”: “Throw my heart against the flint and hardness of my fault.”

London parish clerks continued to list grief as a cause of death until the 19th century, by which time advances in medical science had produced more mechanical explanations for life’s mysteries. In 1893, Daniel Hale Williams—founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first Black-owned hospital in the U. S.—performed one of the earliest successful heart surgeries. He quite literally fixed the broken heart of a stabbing victim by sewing the pericardium or heart sac back together.

Nowadays, there are protocols for treating the coronary problem diagnosed by Dr. Sato. But although we can cure Broken Heart Syndrome, we still can’t cure a broken heart.

Historically Speaking: The Ancient Art of the Tattoo

Body ink has been used to elevate, humiliate and decorate people since the times of mummies.

The Wall Street Journal

August 25, 2022

Earlier this month the celebrity couple Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson announced that their nine-month relationship was over. Ms. Kardashian departed with her memories, but Mr. Davidson was left with something a little more tangible: the words “my girl is a lawyer” tattooed on his shoulder in (premature) homage to Ms. Kardashian’s legal aspirations. He has since been inundated on social media with suggestions on how to cover it up. In 1993, following his split with actress Winona Ryder, the actor Johnny Depp changed “Winona Forever” to “Wino Forever.”

Throughout history, humans have tattooed themselves—and others—for reasons spanning the gamut from religion to revenge. The earliest evidence for tattooing comes from a 5,300-year-old ice mummy nicknamed Otzi after its discovery in the Ötztal Alps in Europe. An analysis of Otzi’s remains revealed that he had been killed by an arrow. Even before his violent death, however, he appeared to have suffered from various painful ailments. Scientists found 61 tattoo marks across Otzi’s body, with many of them placed on known acupuncture points, prompting speculation that the world’s oldest tattoos were used as a health aid.

Similar purposes may have prompted the ancient Nubians to apply tattoos on some pregnant women. Tomb paintings and mummified remains of women in Egypt show that they also adopted the custom, possibly for the same reason.

PHOTO: THOMAS FUCHS

The indelible aspect of tattooing inspired diametrically opposed attitudes. Some ancient peoples, such as the Thracians and the Gauls, regarded tattoos as a mark of noble status and spiritual power. But the Persians, Greeks and Romans used them as a form of punishment or humiliation. Those who imported slaves to Rome from Asia paid duties and tattooed “tax paid” on the foreheads of those they enslaved.

In Polynesian cultures, tattoos were imbued with symbolism. The traditional tatau, which gave rise to the English word tattoo via Captain James Cook in the 18th century, covered the bodies of Samoan men from the waist to the knees. The ritual application took many weeks and entailed excruciating pain plus the danger of septicemia, but anyone who gave up brought shame upon his family for generations.

As a rule, Christian missionaries tried to stamp out the practice during the 19th century. But their disapproval was no match for royal enthusiasm. Fascinated by irezumi, the Japanese decorative art of tattooing inspired by woodblock printing, the future King George V of Britain and his brother Prince Albert Victor both had themselves inked in 1881 while on a royal visit. Noting its subsequent spread among the American upper classes, the New York Herald complained, “The Tattooing Fad has Reached New York Via London.”

In the 20th century, the practice retained a dark side as a symbol of criminality and oppression—most notably associated with the Nazis’ tattooing of inmates at Auschwitz. At the same time, however, so many returning U.S. servicemen had them that the Marlboro Man sported one on his hand in the advertisements of the day.

Historically Speaking: Overrun by Alien Species

From Japanese knotweed to cane toads, humans have introduced invasive species to new environments with disastrous results

The Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2018

Ever since Neolithic people wandered the earth, inadvertently bringing the mouse along for the ride, humans have been responsible for introducing animal and plant species into new environments. But problems can arise when a non-native species encounters no barriers to population growth, allowing it to rampage unchecked through the new habitat, overwhelming the ecosystem. On more than one occasion, humans have transplanted a species for what seemed like good reasons, only to find out too late that the consequences were disastrous.

One of the most famous examples is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year: the introduction of Japanese knotweed to the U.S. A highly aggressive plant, it can grow 15 feet high and has roots that spread up to 45 feet. Knotweed had already been a hit in Europe because of its pretty little white flowers, and, yes, its miraculous indestructibility.

First mentioned in botanical articles in 1868, knotweed was brought to New York by the Hogg brothers, James and Thomas, eminent American horticulturalists and among the earliest collectors of Japanese plants. Thanks to their extensive contacts, knotweed found a home in arboretums, botanical gardens and even Central Park. Not content with importing one of world’s most invasive shrubs, the Hoggs also introduced Americans to the wonders of kudzu, a dense vine that can grow a foot a day.

Impressed by the vigor of kudzu, agriculturalists recommended using these plants to provide animal fodder and prevent soil erosion. In the 1930s, the government was even paying Southern farmers $8 per acre to plant kudzu. Today it is known as the “vine that ate the South,” because of the way it covers huge tracts of land in a green blanket of death. And Japanese knotweed is still spreading, colonizing entire habitats from Mississippi to Alaska, where only the Arctic tundra holds it back from world domination.

Knotweed has also reached Australia, a country that has been ground zero for the worst excesses of invasive species. In the 19th century, the British imported non-native animals such as rabbits, cats, goats, donkeys, pigs, foxes and camels, causing mass extinctions of Australia’s native mammal species. Australians are still paying the price; there are more rabbits in the country today than wombats, more camels than kangaroos.

Yet the lesson wasn’t learned. In the 1930s, scientists in both Australia and the U.S. decided to import the South American cane toad as a form of biowarfare against beetles that eat sugar cane. The experiment failed, and it turned out that the cane toad was poisonous to any predator that ate it. There’s also the matter of the 30,000 eggs it can lay at a time. Today, the cane toad can be found all over northern Australia and south Florida.

So is there anything we can do once an invasive species has taken up residence? The answer is yes, but it requires more than just fences, traps and pesticides; it means changing human incentives. Today, for instance, the voracious Indo-Pacific lionfish is gobbling up local fish in the west Atlantic, while the Asian carp threatens the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. There is only one solution: We must eat them, dear reader. These invasive fish can be grilled, fried or consumed as sashimi, and they taste delicious. Likewise, kudzu makes great salsa, and Japanese knotweed can be treated like rhubarb. Eat for America and save the environment.

WSJ Historically Speaking: The Perils of Cultural Purity

PHOTO: THOMAS FUCHS

“Cultural appropriation” is a leading contender for the most overused phrase of 2017. Originally employed by academics in postcolonial studies to describe the adoption of one culture’s creative expressions by another, the term has evolved to mean the theft or exploitation of an ethnic culture or history by persons of white European heritage. Continue reading…

WSJ Historically Speaking: A History of Colors and Their Owners

ILLUSTRATION: THOMAS FUCHS

In 2009, a graduate student working in a chemistry lab at Oregon State University accidentally created a new, brilliantly blue pigment while experimenting with manganese oxide and other materials. Dubbed “YInMn blue” after its chemical makeup, the pigment quickly spurred a research paper and a patent application. And soon the gorgeous new color will be available to all of us: Crayola recently announced that it would introduce a blue crayon “inspired” by YInMn and kicked off a contest to name it. Continue reading…