June, 2020 - Hektoen International

All too human: The mountain gorillas of Uganda

June 29, 2020

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Fig 1. Adult female mountain gorilla The Ugandan mountain gorilla is a member of the Hominidae family, also known as the great Apes. The extant species include: the orangutan, the eastern and western gorilla, the chimpanzee, the bonobo, and ourselves—Homo sapiens. The mountain gorilla is one […]

Ernest Henry Starling and the birth of English Physiology

June 29, 2020

JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1. Ernest Starling. Univ. College. Graduate Guy Hospital. 1890. London. (From Images from the History of Medicine (NLM) ). Accessed via Wikimedia Science has only one language, quantity, and only one argument, the experiment -EH Starling Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927) (Fig 1) was an outstanding figure in the […]

Reflections on time long gone by

June 26, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States The author of this delightful book, Dr. John Raffensperger, is a retired surgeon who entered medical school in 1949. His book presents a stark contrast between how medicine was practiced then and how it is now. It highlights the many changes, mostly good but some bad, that […]

Rilke: A poet’s death

June 24, 2020

Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. A portrait of Rilke painted two years after his death by Leonid Pasternak. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Rose, oh reiner widerspruch, lust, Niemandes schlaf zu sein under soviel lidern Rose, o pure contradiction, desire, to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids. – Rainer Maria Rilke, […]

Being our best selves: hidden in full view

June 24, 2020

James Stoller Peter Rea Alan Kolp Cleveland, Ohio, United States Figure 1. Pillars and pediment We live in a paradox framed by a tension between age-old wisdom about excellence and our current state. The paradox is this: our behaviors and our priorities are often at odds with age-old truths about how we can be […]

John Francis Hall-Edwards—a radiology pioneer

June 23, 2020

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Hall-Edwards (Courtesy of The Library of Birmingham Archives) John Francis Hall-Edwards was born on 19 December 1858 in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham followed by Queen’s College, Birmingham where he studied medicine and was an apprentice to […]

Good patient, good doctor

June 23, 2020

Lealani Mae Acosta Nashville, Tennessee, United States Illustration by Lealani Mae Y. Acosta What makes a “good” patient? What makes a “good” doctor? I am a cognitive behavioral neurologist who specializes in dementia. I relish the longitudinal relationship I have with patients and appreciate hearing them say with pride, “Dr. Acosta is MY doctor.” Being someone’s […]

Ahab’s gift: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the meaning of pain

June 23, 2020

Xi Chen Rochester, New York, United States A whale being speared with harpoons by fishermen in the arctic sea. Engraving by A. M. Fournier after E. Traviès. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. In the summer months before my first year of medical school, I unfurled the pages of Moby Dick. Immersed in the novel’s adventurous […]

Belding Scribner and his arteriovenous Teflon shunt

June 19, 2020

Belding Scribner. Photo by Kay Rodriguez. From University of Washington School of Medicine Online News Archive. Without Belding Scribner maintenance dialysis might have never happened. Although by 1960 the technology of hemodialysis had become quite advanced, and several types of dialyzers, notably the Kolff Twin Coil, had been successfully used, long-term access to the vascular system […]

Tracing wisps of hair

June 19, 2020

Miriam Rosen Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States Child’s Play by Miriam Rosen My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen. For the next nine years, she lived her life with elegance and seemed to do it with ease. She continued her psychiatry practice, only gradually reducing the number of patients she saw. She […]