August, 2020 - Hektoen International

Robert Schumann’s hand injury

August 18, 2020

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Robert and Clara Schumann. By Eduard Kaiser. 1847. Via Wikimedia The death of the American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928–2020)1 whose brilliant career as a piano soloist was upended in his mid-thirties by the development of a crippling movement disorder affecting his right hand, brings to mind the composer […]

The scourge, the scientist, and the swindle

August 18, 2020

Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Alice Augusta Ball, 1915. (Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as […]

The Yellow Wallpaper: the flawed prescription

August 18, 2020

Mahek Khwaja Karachi, Pakistan Yellow Wallpaper Art: A Bowl with “The House”~ Tower, the Yellow Room. By Julie Jordan Scott on Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story The Yellow Wallpaper in nineteenth-century America when gendered norms prevailed in society at large and notably in medicine. In a previous article, “Charlotte Perkins […]

Remembering Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, physician philosopher

August 18, 2020

Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, United States “Get Wisdom.” – Proverbs 4:5 Photograph of the author (right) and Dr. Pellegrino (left). Courtesy of the author. One day in the spring of 1985, I remember jogging past the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, wondering what went on in there. It was a gorgeous […]

Albert C. Barnes, MD: the physician who spun silver into gold

August 18, 2020

Sylvia Karasu New York, New York, United States Argyrol, the compound developed by Dr. Albert C. Barnes and Dr. Hermann Hille to treat ophthalmia neonatorum, a conjunctivitis that led to blindness in newborns then caused by gram-negative gonococcus bacteria. Infection was contracted from mothers during vaginal delivery. Credit: Argyrol bottle, c. 1902-1907, Barnes & […]

Ephesus and its renowned physicians

August 17, 2020

L. J. Sandlow George Dunea Chicago, Illinois, United States To visit the extensive ruins of Ephesus is to step back into the beginnings of history. The city had been founded by Ionian Greek colonists in the tenth century BC. It prevailed after an early turbulent history and was prospered initially as an independent city-state. […]

Harvey Cushing: Surgeon, Author, Soldier, Historian 1869-1939

August 17, 2020

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States Harvey Williams Cushing. Photograph by W.(?)W.B. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Harvey Cushing was a third-generation physician, born to a family of New England Puritans who had migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid 1830s. His father and grandfather were successful physicians; family members on both […]

Samuel Mudd, MD: Good Samaritan or conspirator?

August 13, 2020

Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States Figure 1 Samuel A. Mudd, MD. Wikimedia. As he rose in the Washington, D.C. courtroom on June 30, 1865, to hear his verdict, Dr. Samuel Mudd looked older than his thirty-one years (Figure 1). His odobene mustache framed his mouth and his goatee was speckled with prematurely […]

Thomas Sydenham, “The English Hippocrates”

August 13, 2020

JMS Pearce East Yorks, UK Fig 1. Thomas Sydenham. Abraham Blooteling after Mary Beale – portrait of Thomas Sydenham 8-B-47-Med Source Still Fever burns, and all her skill defies Till Sydenham’s wisdom plays a double part, Quells the disease and helps the failing Art. -from a poem on plague by John Locke, 1668 […]

The bedside manners of Ingmar Bergman’s celluloid physicians

August 13, 2020

Eelco Wijdicks Rochester, Minnesota, United States Bergman directing the two psychiatrists in Face to Face (1976)—Courtesy, Everett Collection The great humanitarian filmmaker and auteur Ingmar Bergman used physicians in his films much more frequently than his peers. Bergman’s full filmography, including two films (Thirst and Brink of Life) directed by but not written by Bergman, […]