Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: March 2017

  • Bari in the seventh cholera pandemic

    Salvatore Barbuti Moro, Italy Domenico Martinelli Rosa Prato Foggia, Italy   Gazzetta del Mezzoggiorno, Bari, Italy, 31st August 1973. Photo Courtesy of Prof. Salvatore Barbuti’s private collection. It all began on a quiet warm afternoon in August 1973 when an infectious diseases specialist called his friend in public health and hesitantly asked for a test…

  • Public health measures derived from the Jewish tradition: II. Washing and cleaning

    Tova Chein,Mark Epelbaum,Robert SternNew York, New York, United States Introduction Historically, Jewish contributions to public health measures have not been given adequate attribution. The previous article in this series (Hektoen International, Winter 2016) documented the ancient Jewish recognition of the importance of: The ritual washing of hands There are many forms of washing identified in the…

  • Huetation

    Sooo-z Mastropietro Westport, CT     Inspiration can appear unexpectedly just like progress born from sickness. Huetation, inspired by Rebecca Skloot’s book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and film documentary The Way of All Flesh took awe from an 8 second visual of mutating cancer cells, displayed with a sequence of 3 images in…

  • Queer and unked: Disability, monstrosity, and George Eliot’s “Sympathy”

    Christina Lee Kent, United Kingdom   Silas finds Eppie. Eliot, George. The Jenson Society, NY. In The Mill on the Floss, the intellectual and sensitive Philip Wakem, who has a curved spine from a fall in infancy, is called “a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue.”1(II.vi) In the manuscript Philip Wakem is branded…

  • Portraits of vision: Sir Joshua Reynolds

    Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, United States   Fig 1. Joshua Reynolds, Self Portrait, 1788, Royal Collection Trust, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The subject of this portrait wears wiry, diminutive round spectacles, lending a distinctly pedantic flair. Yet gazing out is none other than Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), one of the greatest English painters in history…

  • Dr. Willem J. Kolff: a great man

    George Dunea Chicago, IL In Memoriam Willem J. Kolff: A great man   Willem Kolff, often called the father of the artificial kidney,died in January 2009, 3 days before his 98th birthday. During his long life he received numerous honors and accolades for his work. Many people thought he should have received the Nobel Prize, but as he once…

  • Suicide in medical school

    Trevor KleeCambridge, MA, United States Depression and suicide are difficult subjects to write about because they are unpleasant and have at least a faint tinge of moral failure. Moreover, the enormity of the feelings involved dwarfs the attempts to portray them in writing. Perhaps the best written description of suicidal ideation comes from David Foster…

  • Etienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904). The study of movement in the functions of life: eclecticism and inventiveness

    Philippe Campillo Lille, France   “[…] I think, together with Claude Bernard, that movement is the most important act, in that all the functions come into play in order to achieve it.”1    Fig 1. Marey, Etienne Jules (1830–1904) Courtesy of Collection BIU Health Medicine, Open License. Marey had a long and distinguished scientific career…

  • The missing chapter in our curriculum

    Alexandra Adams Hershey, Pennsylvania   A maternity nurse examines a pregnant patient at a rural community health center in northern Uganda. Photo by Alexandra Adams. The rural village of Paimol in northern Uganda, located four hours away from the nearest hospital.  Photo by Alexandra Adams.   A fourteen-year-old girl, large with child, presented to her community health…

  • 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…