Medical Case Report on Repeat Treatment of Restless Legs Syndrome with Intravenous Infusion of Iron

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a debilitating neurological disorder for which a range of medical interventions with varied efficacy has been employed. Based on evidence of iron deficiency in the substantia nigra of the midbrain, there are reports of substantial benefits from intravenous iron infusion. This case report demonstrates a strong statistically significant negative correlation between serum ferritin and RLS severity of symptoms in a subject with RLS who received 2 intravenous infusions of ferric carboxymaltose over a period of 464 days. The results provide further evidence to support the treatment strategy.

Reporting on individual experience

This paper proposes a new model for a patient-centred medical case report. Patient-centred approaches adopt the patient’s perspective and emphasise the individual’s experience of illness, and are intended to answer criticisms that medical texts for professionals, by focusing solely on a disease phenomenon presented within a framework of biomedical reasoning, depersonalise the patient and fail to engage in patient advocacy. The paper provides a systematic review of the most important strands in research on medical case reporting, taking a socio-cultural approach that focuses specifically on the evolution of the genre and on existing examples of patient-centredness that could form a basis for the new model. The aim here is to offer the first systematised proposal containing guidelines already available in the literature, as well as to provide recommendations on how to write about patients in medical case reports in way that does not depersonalise them.

Impotence and the Natural Explanation of Bewitchment: Wolfgang Reichart’s Medical Case Report on the Loss of “potentia coeundi”

Wolfgang Reichart (1486-c. 1547) was a humanist and a town physician of Ulm. His work consists of a largely unpublished collection of nearly 600 texts. So far, it has been claimed that this compilation only consists of letters and poems. However, we have found a medical treatise, wherein Reichart discusses a case of impotence, its pathophysiology and therapy. One of the crucial aspects in this text is the relationship it describes between witchcraft and medicine. The patient claims that his condition is the result of bewitchment. Reichart accepts witchcraft as a possible aetiological explanation, but claims that since the processes triggered by witchcraft are still natural, the patient can be cured by natural means. Thus, Reichart’s approach is an important contribution to the history of medicine and to the history of science of the early modern period. We provide the first edition, translation, and commentary of the text.