Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Illinois

  • Soul power

    Shannon Adams-Hartung Chicago, Illinois, United States Soul food has deep historical, cultural, and economic roots in the African American community. Much of the cuisine affiliated with modern-day soul food dates back to the era of American slavery. Before the fourteenth century, the African diet was primarily vegetarian. Meat was used sparingly in comparison to various…

  • A celebrated occasion

    Eli Ehrenpreis Chicago, Illinois, United States   Artwork by Annie Trincot.       She arrives at the office early, looking as if she stepped from a portrait. Her blue eyes glimmer with tears. “My gynecologist has been treating me for hemorrhoids, but the bleeding has been getting worse. It started when I had my…

  • “My dear neoplasm:” Sigmund Freud’s oral cancer

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United states   Sigmund Freud circa 1921. Photo by Max Halberstadt. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. When the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, died in London early on the morning of September 23, 1939, he succumbed to what he wryly referred to as “my dear old cancer with which I have…

  • Entomophagy: History, global food shortage, and climate change

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States On a recent wildlife adventure to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, our group of adventurers was treated to an afternoon walk with a group of local Khoisan villagers. They were eager to show us how they were able to live off the land. Highlights of that visit included hearing…

  • Reading Lacan 1Reading Lacan 2Identification with the Aggressor

    Sean Murphy Chicago, Illinois, United States   Created after reading the work of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Reading Lacan 1 (top) and Reading Lacan 2 (bottom left) capture the abstract nature of his baroque speaking and writing styles. At the same time, they maintain through a bright color palette one goal of psychoanalysis: cure—and with…

  • Gain of function

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States   “It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.” – Enrico Fermi (1901–1954)   SARS-CoV-2 virus anatomy with proteins labeled. Created by Maya Peters Kostman for the Innovative Genomics Institute. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. “Gain of Function” (GoF) burst into…

  • Villanelle

    Jolene Won Chicago, Illinois, United States   Photo by Sandy Torchon on Pexels. I did not know today would be your last – we see no end for those that we hold dear. If I had known I’d not have let it pass. The nurse who knows she can’t set down her tasks continues on,…

  • The appendicitis conundrum

    Jayant RadhakrishnanNathaniel KooDarien, Illinois, United States Acute appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency in the world. One would expect consensus regarding its management, but that has not been the case from the time the appendix was first identified. Galen (129–216 CE) was not permitted to dissect human bodies, so he dissected monkeys. Since…

  • Metastatic sarcoma

    Tulsi Patel Chicago, Illinois, United States   His big regret was never building his son a trampoline, now locked away in the shed like some treasure chest he can’t open. Eyes welling up, he says to me proudly, resignedly “16 tumors” before he coughs up a river of rotten red roses. A Foot Bridge, North…

  • Recognition at last

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States Andrew Moyer, in his Peoria laboratory, discovered the process for mass producing penicillin. USDA-ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. Public domain.    “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”  — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream     The adage “out of sight, out of mind” appears to…