Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Year: 2017

  • Leprosy: A nearly forgotten malady

    JMS PearceHull Royal Infirmary Leprosy was the first proven instance of a bacterium causing a human disease. Along with plague, poliomyelitis, and smallpox, leprosy has beleaguered mankind for millennia, causing devastating and often fatal infections that were historically impossible to cure or prevent. The nervous system, skin,and eyes are the main sites affected. The word…

  • Discovering migraines

    Catherine LanserMadison, Wisconsin, United States My headaches started after my first period when I was a freshman in high school. They were dull, daily, aching headaches that were manageable. I usually just took some acetaminophen and they went away. But none had been as bad as the one gripping me on one memorable day. I…

  • Poe’s consumptive paradox

    Gregory RuteckiCleveland, Ohio, United States Tuberculosis may have killed more people than any pathogen in history1 leaving an array of terrible stigmata whenever it extinguished life. The essential image of tuberculosis in the eighteenth century was that of foul decay.2 Morgagni vividly described the road to a consumptive death as, “(she) threw up pus by…

  • Uncertainty and clinical truths

    Anjan BanerjeeCambridgeshire, United Kingdom “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability” (William Osler) Monday 15:35 pm The ninety-eight year old patient with piercing blue eyes and a quizzical expression sat in her wheelchair in the colorectal clinic. We sat facing each other in a bare, windowless room, knees almost touching. She…

  • A hospital for sick children

    Joseph deBettencourtChicago, Illinois, United States Down a narrow street in an old London neighborhood sat a large, forgotten house. It used to belong to a well-known doctor who built an addition just for his medical library, inviting students to come and pour over the leather bound tomes he spent his life acquiring. With the windows…

  • Ibn al-Nafis and the pulmonary circulation

    Medical advances are often made over long periods of time, making it difficult to assign priority to any particular individual. Such has been the case for the ”discovery” of the pulmonary circulation, a distinction variously assigned to three anatomists of the sixteenth century, Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo, and Andrea Cesalpino. But in 1924 the Egyptian…

  • Public health measures derived from the Jewish tradition: III. The Bris: Jewish ritual circumcision and hemophilia

    Matthew MigliozziDavid ForsteinSarah RindnerRobert SternNew York City, New York, United States Historically, Jewish contributions to public health measures have not been given adequate attribution. The previous articles in this series have documented (1) the ancient Jewish recognition of the importance of isolating individuals with an infectious disease; (2) recognition of tuberculosis as an infectious disorder…

  • Welcome aboard

    Myron WeinerDallas, TX Greetings!Welcome to your afterlife!I am Charon, your boatman; your guidefrom life to death.Life differs for everyone who is born.Death is the same. Although, stooped, I am strong enoughTo convey you toSee the river the Greeks called Acheron.To drink the waters of Lethe. I extend my hand in welcomeTo my ancient barge.Do not…

  • An “enematic” saga

    F. Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, USA Those of us who have managed to survive sixty, seventy, or more years remember that the enema or clyster was, by far, the commonest home remedy in the twentieth century. (Enema: “Liquid or gaseous substance, either medicinal or alimentary, introduced mechanically into the rectum.”) No family was without the rubber bottle,…

  • Behind the green partition

    James SmithUnited Kingdom Author’s note Any attempt to truly understand the impact of humanitarian crises on individual lives, particularly when perpetuated over the course of many years, may feel like an ever-receding ambition for those invested in humanitarian response. This is further complicated by sectoral advocacy strategies and programmes that speak of aggregate populations, and…