Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Kwashiorkor

  • Kwashiorkor

    Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States An eleven-month-old Egyptian infant sat wailing on a cot, his abdomen pouched out and covered by spider-like purplish veins. His tiny arms and legs were like sticks, except for his swollen ankles. He was brought in by his mother who knew that his food and care would be free,…

  • Theme

    WOMEN IN MEDICINE Published in November, 2019 H E K T O R A M A     .     ALICE HAMILTON     The squalid streets of working-class Chicago in the late nineteenth century would have been something of a shock to the girl who grew up in a sheltered but educated household…

  • Cicely Williams and kwashiorkor

    Sue Reeves Roehampton, London, UK   Figure 1. Dr Cicely Williams in later years on a visit to Ghana (The Wellcome Trust, London). Cicely Delphine Williams (1893-1992) has been described as achieving  the ‘physician’s dream’1 by diagnosing, identifying the cause, and finding a prevention and a cure for a disease.2  The disease she identified was…