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We three kings and Christmas trees: pharmacotherapy from presents and diseases from decorations

Stuart M Smith and B James McCallum
Med J Aust 2007; 187 (11): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01486.x
Published online: 3 December 2007

We seldom identify the holiday season with medical matters, but perhaps we have been remiss in not doing so. Many holiday customs have medical significance — some positive, some negative. Christmas and the following 2 weeks host the highest cardiac and non-cardiac mortality of the major holidays,1 but few people seem to dread the approach of December as a threat to their physical health. On the positive side, some ancient kinds of Christmas gifts turn out to have modern medical applications, while, not so positively, some modern decorations cause a fair degree of morbidity.


  • William Jennings Bryan Dorn VA Medical Center, Columbia, SC, USA.


Correspondence: brown.mccallum@va.gov

Competing interests:

None identified.

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