The Canterbury Tales and cardiology.

Herrick revealed his broad interest in medicine in 1910 when he reported the "Peculiar Elongated and Sickle-Shaped Red Blood Corpuscles in a Case of Severe Anemia."3 He, therefore, earned for himself the distinction of recognizing and describing two clinically important disorders: obstruction of coronary arteries without sudden death and sickle cell disease. He showed us his love of history and men with ideas when he gave us "Allan Burns: 1781-1813; Anatomist, Surgeon and Cardiologist."4 Young Allan Burns described the pathophysiology of myocardial ischemia and postulated that coronary artery spasm could occur. Herrick wrote that Burns' "native talent, combined with the ability and willingness to work, chiefly accounts for his success . . While Herrick's medical writing is of great interest, I have always been intrigued by his delightful essay "Why I Read Chaucer at Seventy,"5 which he read as an after-dinner address of the Association of American Physicians in Atlantic City in 1931. He begins the essay with the following comments: