January, 2020 - Hektoen International

Humanitarian for all: The life of Henry Dunant

January 29, 2020

Stephen Kosnar Lima, Peru Henry Dunant 1855. ICRC on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. In his late thirties and bankrupt, Henry Dunant lived in abject poverty, on occasion being forced to eat bread crusts and sleep outdoors in Paris. It is a bitter slice of one man’s history, particularly given that only a few years […]

Yellow blood: Learn from yesterday

January 29, 2020

Meguna Nakai Nagoya, Japan A person who contributed to the Red Cross. Creative Commons. In 2020 Japan will host the second Tokyo Olympics. When the first Olympics were televised in 1964, people were surprised to find that Japan had developed so quickly even though only nineteen years had passed after World War II. Yet […]

Blood on the road

January 29, 2020

Anne Marie Appelgren Málaga, Spain The modified Ford station wagon, used as a blood transfusion transport in the name of the international Red Cross in Spain 1937. To the right we see Norman Bethune and far right Hazen Sise. “The wounded are dying, searching for blood. Now the blood can move, now the blood […]

The mysterious Red Cross boy

January 28, 2020

Emeka Chibuikem V. Enugu State, Nigeria Have You a Red Cross Service Flag? Poster art by Jessie Willcox Smith. 1918. Library Company of Philadelphia. Who is this Red Cross Boy? This is the question to which I could find no answer until this day. I am Alex, from the Igbo tribe in the South-East […]

The barber-surgeons: Their history over the centuries

January 28, 2020

Anusha Pillay Raipur, India Bloodletting from the arm. Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. “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 blood, Did well his threefold trade explain, Who shav’d, drew teeth, and breath’d a vein.” – […]

Bloody art

January 28, 2020

Francesca Portante d’Alessandro Rome, Italy Crucifix, 1290, Giotto di Bondone, tempera on wood, Florence. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Blood has always been depicted in art, from cavemen’s hunts, to medieval altarpieces and battle scenes, to modern film and photography. Blood is able to simultaneously represent both life and death, the sacred and profane, violence […]

Destination assured—The power of the cross

January 28, 2020

Kelsey Wollin Dunn Oregon, Wisconsin, United States “Destination Assured,” by Kelsey Wollin Dunn (Mixed Media Sculpture, 2020), from the artist’s private collection. The most powerful and mysterious statement ever made about blood was first uttered about two thousand years ago by Jesus of Nazareth. In the present day, it continues to be recited regularly […]

“The Blood Battle”: Using science to combat the fear of blood

January 28, 2020

Kayla Peña Providence, Rhode Island U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Marcy Copeland/Released. Public domain. Forty years ago, the University of Michigan and Ohio State University competed in their first “Blood Battle.” Although typically known for their football rivalry, in 1982 the universities decided to expand their competition to see which school could […]

There is power in the blood

January 28, 2020

Mark Tan Northwest Deanery, UK Vue du Cimetiere de Melegnano – le lendemain du Combat. (View of the Cemetery at Melegnano – the aftermath of combat.) “Carne fa carne e vino fa sango” [Meat makes flesh and wine makes blood] — Italian proverb Laura was covered in blood when the paramedics arrived at […]

Grit

January 28, 2020

Romalyn Ante Wolverhampton, England My mother is right—my brother’s blood is getting dirtier. A nurse like me, she had read the result of his glomerular filtration rate, a test that measures how well the kidneys clean the blood. It had dropped below 15, an indication that his chronic renal failure was reaching its end […]