January, 2020 - Hektoen International

First principles

January 30, 2020

Charles G. Kels San Antonio, Texas, United States Ambulance Corps. Method of removing wounded from the field depicts the aftermath of battle in the American Civil War. The law of war is enshrined in treaties but steeped in blood. In 1859, a young Swiss businessman was traveling through Italy when a savage battle between […]

Blood relics and contemporary memory

January 30, 2020

Robbie Porter Worcester, England Basement room of the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg, where the Russian Imperial Family was executed. Investigator Nicholas Sokolov apparently recovered 13 drops of blood from here. Via Wikipedia. Public domain. In the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich there is an exhibit, carefully preserved in an environmentally conditioned case, which is […]

Bloody women

January 30, 2020

M.K.K. Hague-Yearl Montréal, Québec, Canada Calendar depicting scenes relating to health. Both bloodletting scenes show a woman being bled. Bibliotheca Osleriana 7424A, Osler Library of the History of Medicine, McGill University. Source Sitting with little fanfare inside a twentieth-century red hardcover binding is a single leaf whose bibliographic record contains brackets of uncertainty: “[Calendar […]

Blood and bone

January 30, 2020

Sue Stevenson Melbourne, Australia Person Performing Fire Dance at Night by Maris Rhamdani, 2018, on Pexels. The compression socks assist with my low blood volume but they look terrible with my summer dress. Secondhand, $12 on eBay, a 1940s cut with flowers and cap sleeves. The compression socks remind me of ancient old ladies […]

Defining donation

January 30, 2020

Ahmad Shakeri Howsikan Kugathasan Toronto, Canada Money for blood can be another tool we consider in solving shortage. Image: “Today’s blood on an old receipt – merry christmas!” Photo by carloscappaticci, Dec. 24, 2007, on Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Money was tight in college for my roommate and me. I had a book buying […]

A case of toxic blood

January 30, 2020

Shruthi Deivasigamani Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The Dancing Mania by Hendrick Hondius (1642). Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. On a blustery winter day, a molecule of water condenses around a particle of dust in the air. The structure grows in size as it falls closer to earth, and before it hits the ground outside, it […]

Ludwik Hirszfeld: The story of one life that changed thousands of others

January 30, 2020

Paulina Kowalińska Wrocław, Poland Ludwik Hirszfeld in 1916, during the Serbian war. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. “To a far greater extent the group reactions have been used in forensic medicine for the purpose of establishing paternity. The possibility of arriving at decisions in such cases rests on the studies of the hereditary transmission of […]

A history of blood: hysteria, taboos, and evil

January 30, 2020

Danielle Dalechek Norfolk, Virginia, United States The witch no. 1. Joseph E Baker. c1892. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. “Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?” — Carl Jung Historically, the opposite of purity was often viewed and represented […]

Bloody beginnings of hematology

January 29, 2020

Sherin Jose Chockattu Bengaluru, India Bloodletting in 1860 – one of only three known photographs of the procedure. This photo is from the Burns Archive collection. From Burns Archive. His pole, with pewter basins hung, Black, rotten teeth in order strung, Rang’d cups that in the window stood, Lin’d with red rags, to look like […]

The sanctity of blood: Jehovah’s Witnesses and bloodless medicine

January 29, 2020

Margo A. Peyton Baltimore, Maryland, United States Dr. Steven Frank in the operating room at The Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Source Tammy said that her throat looked like that of a bullfrog croaking on an August night. At her local emergency room, her blood pressure was 240/40 […]