Medical researchers frequently turn to veteran troubadour Bob Dylan for inspiration, it was suggested today.
The songsmith’s classic The Times They Are A-changing has been cited some 135 times in medical journals in the last quarter century, researchers found.
And a range of other Dylan songs also appear in the literature, researchers found.
The analysis is one of the annual collection of bizarre medical findings to appear in the Christmas edition of The BMJ this year.
The authors say Dylan began to be cited frequently after 1990, long after his 1960s hey-day.
They found 727 possible references to his songs and state that 213 were unequivocal citations of Dylan.
Another Dylan classic, Blowin’ In the Wind, appears 36 times – although it is unclear why. Once it was used in an article on hang-gliding. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, perhaps for palliative care specialists, and Like A Rolling Stone, for locums, are also popular – although they have sometimes been used as puns such as "like a rolling histone" or "knocking on pollen’s door."
Carl Gornitzki, librarian of the Karolinska Institutet, University Library, Stockholm, Sweden, does not mention Mr Tambourine Man as appearing – it is reputedly about a drug-pusher.
He says it is likely that several journal editors were students in the 1960s – and happily let the references appear in print.
He says that doctors’ admiration of Dylan seems to be reciprocated. In one song, Dylan wrote "I wish I’d been a doctor", adding "maybe I’d have done some good in the world.
He reveals that some of the references emerged from a long-running competition in his own institution to sneak Dylan lyrics into the literature.
* Senior Russian officials walk with an unusual gait probably because of their KGB training, according to a report in the journal.
President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev both have this "gunslinger’s gait," according to neurologist Professor Bastiaan Bloem, of Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
This includes a reduce swing of the right arm, trained to be ready to use a gun, he says.
* Another study suggests democratic politicians may be better off not achieving their ambition to become a head of government.
Most senior British politicians enjoy a longer lifespan than the average population, according to one report in the journal.
But a second study found that heads of government lived on average for 2.7 years less than rivals who lost elections, according to a second report, which studied leaders over a period of nearly 300 years.
* A spoof report in the journal discussed the epidemiology of a "zombie apocalypse".
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