Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Syphilis

  • The ships’ surgeons’ toxic toolkit

    Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia   Mercury ointment applied to a patient’s legs. Paracelsus, Wundartzeney die Frantzosen genannt, I; Frankfurt, 1562. Out of copyright. During the “Age of Sail,” months-long voyages gave rise to unique health concerns.1,2 Moreover, ships’ surgeons frequently encountered diseases brought upon uninhibited sailors through their own “adventurous” behavior. Following their arrival at…

  • Movie review: Miss Evers’ Boys

    P. Ravi Shankar Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia   Segregated water fountains. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. U.S. Army photo. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was a dark chapter in United States history. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began to study the natural history of progression of syphilis. The study was originally called the “Tuskegee…

  • Words

    Riley Scherr Irvine, California, United States   “Words.” Photo by Diana Luque on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Patients in the lobby think I speak Spanish very well. Although I momentarily feel validated, those compliments would mean more if I did not know I was repeating the same conversation cyclically, drawing from a carefully prepared arsenal…

  • Douglas Argyll Robertson and his pupils

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Figure 1. Argyll Robertson pupil reactions. Diagram by Chainwit. on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. In my student days, the Wasserman reaction (WR), though not specific, was performed almost routinely in patients on medical wards to detect syphilis. Several direct and serological tests of varying sensitivity and specificity have now replaced…

  • Love and syphilis: The marriage of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

    Nicolas Roberto Robles Diego Peral  Caceres, Spain   Figure 1. Portrait of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer. Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. ¡Cuánta nota dormía en sus cuerdas, como el pájaro duerme en las ramas, esperando la mano de nieve que sabe arrancarlas! How many notes sleep in its…

  • It always comes down to medicine

    Matthew Turner Washington, United States   Blackbeard the Pirate. Published as “Capt. Teach alias Black-Beard” in A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c. to which is added, a genuine account of the voyages and plunders of the most notorious pyrates. Interspersed with several diverting tales, and…

  • Diagnosis: Neurosyphilis. Treatment: Malaria, iatrogenic

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Patient in Kettering hypertherm cabinet undergoing fever therapy. New Orleans, 1937. U.S. Marine Hospital. Works Progress Administration photo. New Orleans Public Library Digital Collections via Wikimedia. Public domain. “The syphilitic man was thinking hard…about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street.…

  • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Statue of Copernicus, Warsaw, Poland. Photo by Arpan K. Banerjee. Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 Feb 1473 in the Prussian town of Torun, now part of Poland. He studied at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, and although his main subjects were mathematics and astronomy, he…

  • Dr. Dominique Larrey

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Larrey provokes contractions on a recently amputated limb. Illustration from Les merveilles de la science, 1867-1891, Tome 1, by Louis Figuier. Paris: Furne, Jouvet. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Dominique Jean Larrey (1766-1842), the orphaned son of a shoemaker, was raised by an uncle who was a surgeon and became a…

  • Book review: Medicine in the Middle Ages

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of Medicine in the Middle Ages by Juliana Cummings. In the history of Western Europe, the Middle Ages refers to the period between the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century through the beginning of the Renaissance in the 1500s. These thousand years were characterized…