Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Schubert

  • John Caius, the polymath who described the sweating sickness

    Philip Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   John Caius (1510-1573), Master of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. 1563. Unknown painter. Credit: Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge. Imagine being a physician in a rural community in England in the mid-sixteenth century, always concerned with the reappearance of the Black Death. Late one summer you…

  • Sergei Rachmaninoff: The dichotomy of life and music

    Michael Yafi Chaden Yafi Houston, Texas, United States Rachmaninoff. Photo by Bain News Service. between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920. Library of Congress Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943), a Russian composer, was known for having very large hands. With a span that covered twelve white keys on the keyboard (the interval of a thirteenth), he could play…

  • Schubert, Schumann, and the Spirochete

    Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)  Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856) Their names sound Germanic and are somewhat similar, as are their portraits. They wrote beautiful music and rank high among the great composers of the romantic era. To confuse their names would constitute an unforgivable crime, especially in the eye of music lovers. Yet in…