Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Year: 2020

  • COVID-19 and the Black Death

    Colleen Donnelly Denver, Colorado, United States During the fourteenth century waves of the bubonic plague washed across Europe. Doomsday books of the age described an apocalypse that wiped out one-quarter to one-third of the population. Today, we are far better at tracking both the numbers of people impacted and the spread of disease, depending on the…

  • Heinrich Heine and the mattress tomb

    Nicolás Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Harry Heine was born in Bolkerstrasse, Düsseldorf, Germany. He jokingly described himself as the “first man of the century,” claiming that he had been born on New Year’s Eve 1800. Researchers have discovered, however, that December 13, 1797, is most likely the date of his birth. The oldest of four children,…

  • The most enduring fictional character in literature, Sherlock Holmes, created by a physician

    Marshall LichtmanRochester, New York, United States My colleague and friend, Professor Seymour I. Schwartz, a distinguished surgeon and academician, has chronicled the careers of over 100 physicians who were notable writers in his monograph From Medicine to Manuscript: Doctors with a Literary Legacy.1 These physician-writers ranged from Maimonides to John Locke to John Keats to…

  • The Emberá of Panama

    L.J. SandlowGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The Emberá are an indigenous people who live near the Panama-Columbia border. There are about 33,000 living in Darién, Panama, and 50,000 in Colombia. Until 1960 most lived in extended family settlements along the rivers. Since the 60s many have moved together into small villages, still along the river.…

  • Origins of the knee jerk

    JMS Pearce East Yorks, England Reflex hammers are the icon or hallmark of every neurologist. How important are the reflexes they elicit? What is their mechanism? The advent of modern technology has made it easy to forget how important the skills and means in eliciting physical signs were to clinicians of the nineteenth and early twentieth…

  • William Cullen (1710-1790)

    William Cullen ranks high among the illustrious members of the Scottish Enlightenment. Friend of Adam Smith and physician of David Hume, president of the Royal College of Physicians of Glasgow and later of Edinburgh, he was appointed physician to the King in Scotland and became one of the most popular professors at the University of…

  • Conjoined twins: Art, ethics, and the media

    John RaffenspergerFort Meyers, Florida, United States Conjoined twins have fascinated humans since earliest times. Artists illustrated twins in clay, stone statues, wood carvings, and portraits. They were exhibited on stage, in freak shows, and the circus. The worldwide news media, especially the intrusive television camera, has now replaced the circus as a means of exhibiting…

  • Tendon reflex hammers

    JMS Pearce East York, England The vogue for reflex hammers started with Erb and Westphal’s adjacent papers1,2 in the 1875 issue of the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, which described the tendon or muscle stretch reflex. Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) read medicine at Heidelberg where he remained for most of his life. The leading neurologist in…

  • From woodpeckers to Auenbrugger

    James Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States In learning the art of physical diagnosis, every medical student is taught the technique and application of percussion. Percussion involves placing the palm and fingers of one hand on the patient and using the tip of the third finger of the other hand as a hammer, striking the distal interphalangeal…

  • Budapest: Medicine and paprika

    L.J. SandlowGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The Magyars, ancestors of modern Hungarians, came from the region of the Ural Mountains and invaded Europe around AD 800. Crossing the Carpathian Mountains, they conquered the Pannonian plain and established a large and important medieval kingdom. In 1526 they were defeated at the decisive battle of Mohacs, their…