Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Katrina Genuis

  • Food of the body

    Katrina Genuis Vancouver, Canada   Pero and Cimon Fresco, 50 to 79 CE, unknown artist, Pompeii, Casa IX. Copyright of photograph attributed to Stefano Bolognini. Two thousand years ago, the Roman writer Valerius Maximus documented a particularly strange set of events. In his collection Memorable Doings and Sayings, Maximus recounts thousands of episodes of exemplary…

  • Death and new-doctor eyes

    Katrina GenuisVancouver, Canada   With slim cuts to her wrists, she came into the emergency room and said she wanted to die. “This is clearly a cry for attention,” others said. “Send the new doctor to stitch her up.” I sat by her bed with a 30-gauge lidocaine-filled needle and 4.0 nylon sutures, and began…

  • The Isenheim Altarpiece and “homeopathic” hospital art

    Katrina GenuisCanada Art found in hospitals generally has the aim of comforting the viewer. Presumably, ill patients or exhausted on-call physicians who amble past pastoral countryside scenes or watercolour flowers are reminded that despite their current difficultly there is great beauty in existence. But residences for the sick have not always contained artwork that is…

  • The death of Francesca Tornabuoni: examining childbirth amidst societal rebirth

    Katrina GenuisVictoria, Canada Introduction The Italian Renaissance. These mere words herald a mental avalanche of associations; images of flourishing architecture, fresco paintings, overflowing libraries, and expanding commerce flow into our minds. As was the case for most historical eras, however, reality was far more complex than the artistic projections of the day suggest. Ironically, in…