Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: May 2019

  • The lost art and the hidden treasure

    Jennifer BinghamPittsburgh, Pennsylvania The puzzle box is empty and the pieces are scattered across the table. After all, a puzzle was never meant to stay in the box. The trouble begins when a few pieces have fallen off the table. The excitement of seeing the purpose and design of the puzzle distract from the realization…

  • The night the troubles erupted in Belfast

    Alun EvansBelfast, United Kingdom When I qualified in medicine at the Queen’s University of Belfast in 1968, Northern Ireland was a curious cocktail of sectarianism and garden parties. I soon discovered that winning the medal in surgery was not such a bright idea when I began my postgraduate career as Professor Harold Rodgers’ single-handed house…

  • Leaving nothing to the imagination: Casualties Union and post-war first aid training

    Jessica DouthwaiteLondon, UK In 1940, a new method for training the emergency services in casualty rescue emerged from the demands of the Second World War.1 Until then, rescue training was perfunctory —neither concerned with recreating representative conditions for trainees, nor taking account of the quality of victims’ experiences. Due to the exigencies of the war,…

  • Climate trauma in Monique Roffey’s Archipelago

    Lucille MiaoNew Jersey, United States In recent years, the idea of ecological catastrophe has captured the artistic imagination and infiltrated popular culture through novels such as Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Water Knife and television series like teen drama The 100 (2014–). These stories often tell of a post-apocalyptic future in which human-induced climate change has devastated…

  • A traditional practice in baby care: salting

    Sinem ÇakaSakarya, TurkeySümeyra TopalKahramanamaras, TurkeyNursan ÇınarSakarya, Turkey In many societies, there are traditional practices performed to protect babies from magic, witchcraft, or the evil eye. At first, it may seem that these practices would have no particular effect on health. Some of these traditions bring psychological relief for the family, but some may delay the…

  • Bibliotheca Sibbaldiana

    Colin McDowallEdinburgh, Scotland On 5 February 1723 a crowd gathered at the house of the late Sir Robert Sibbald, noted Edinburgh physician, for the auction of his personal library. Sibbald was a considerable collector of books and after his death in August 1722 the sale of his surviving library garnered considerable attention. Although printed as…

  • Wilhelm Werner’s life unworthy of life: A voice from the Nazi Euthanasia Program

    Erika SilvestriBerlin, Germany The medical-scientific sector was among the first to adhere to National Socialism: in 1933, nine doctors sat in Parliament in the ranks of the party.1 After a century of scientific dynamism and in opposition to religious dogma, the eugenic ideal had spread throughout Europe and the United States, taking on the appearance…

  • Labor of love

    Mary OakSeattle, Washington, USA Each week my elderly father and I watch babies being born. In the silver-shadowed flickers of a television, we sit as we often did in my childhood. Now in the spectral shade of his decelerated years, I care for him. He spends a lot of time watching TV. I join him…

  • Balancing empathy

    Nora SalisburyVancouver, BC, Canada I almost fainted on my first clinical day in nursing school. I was invited to watch a catheter insertion. While my gut reaction was to completely avoid it, I knew that as a new student nurse I was supposed to be excited about these kinds of opportunities. Watching the procedure I…

  • Delusions of being and nothingness

    Jesús Ramírez-BermúdezMexico City, Mexico In the late nineteenth century, the French physician Jules Cotard described patients with a delusional denial of bodily organs, self-existence, and the world. The woman originally described “believed that she had no brain, nerves, chest, or bowels, and that she was only skin and bone. God and the devil did not…