Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Books & Reviews

  • Martin Chuzzlewitt by Charles Dickens

    Although Charles Dickens called Martin Chuzzlewitt immeasurably the best of his stories, it was at first unsuccessful and even caused him to have his pay cut. Suspenseful and gripping, with murders and poisonings, Martin Chuzzlewitt takes place at a time when hospitals were largely places where the poor went to die1; the wealthy were treated…

  • The smell of dystopia: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s a sad commentary on our age that we find Dystopias a lot easier to believe in than Utopias: Utopias we can only imagine, Dystopias we’ve already had.”– Margaret Atwood Brave New World1 is a science fiction novel about a high-tech, controlling dystopia. It is clearly a satire. Nineteen Eighty-Four2 is a…

  • Ingmar Bergman reading psychiatry and psychology texts

    Eelco WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States Ingmar Bergman’s films are existentialist cinema. Cineastes revere his work, despite its allegedly problematic treatment of women and his unapologetically misogynistic and sexist protagonists. His personal life was just as complicated as his films; he married five times and had problematic, intense working relationships with his actors, including sexual affairs.…

  • Book review: Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In her new book, Selina Mills, an award-winning journalist who is legally blind, takes us on a journey through the cultural history of visual impairment and blindness. It is both informative and empowering, weaving together research and the author’s personal experience. Throughout time, loss of sight has been associated with…

  • Book review: Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of Sir Thomas Browne: The Opium of Time by Gavin Francis Sir William Osler was a great admirer of Sir Thomas Browne’s 1643 Religio Medici, one of his favorite books and on his recommended reading list for medical men. Browne influenced many writers, such as Samuel Johnson, WG…

  • Book review: Fighting for Life: The Twelve Battles That Made Our NHS, and the Struggle for Its Future

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of Fighting for Life: The Twelve Battles that Made Our NHS and the Struggle for Its Future by Isabel Hardman The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) was born on July 5, 1948, and on the seventy-fifth anniversary of its existence, British journalist and broadcaster Isabel Hardman has…

  • Polluting puberty, monstrous menstruation, and fatal femininity

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   “[If] men could menstruate…menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event.”1 – Gloria Steinem, journalist and political activist   Ancient history has shown us that men sometimes looked upon women’s menstrual periods with perplexity, wonder, and fear.2 While it has been suggested that some men have “vagina envy” and “womb…

  • Depression in Little Miss Sunshine

    Emily Atashkari Dublin, Ireland   Frank and Dwayne at the dock. © Twentieth Century Fox. Fair use.  The 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine1 follows the dysfunctional Hoover family as they journey from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Redondo Beach, California, in their old Volkswagen van to bring seven-year-old Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.…

  • Book review: Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History by Jonathan Kennedy I do not use superlatives lightly, but this is an extraordinary book. It is ambitious in scope and seeks to describe the progress of humanity from earliest times with an emphasis on the role of infectious diseases in our…

  • Book review: The Guru, the Bagman and the Sceptic: A story of science, sex and psychoanalysis

    Robert Kaplan Sydney, Australia   Sigmund Freud (lower left, seated) and his “Committee,” including Ernest Jones (far right, standing). Becker & Maass, Berlin. Library of Congress, Marsh Agency/Sigmund Freud Copyrights. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. As a cultural icon of the twentieth century, psychoanalysis has loomed large in the public imagination. What makes it unique is…