January, 2021 - Hektoen International

Doris Unland: surgical nurse extraordinaire

January 22, 2021

Frederic Grannis Duarte, California, United States Doris Unland RN “scrubbed in” OR 10. Doris Unland was an extraordinary American surgical nurse who worked for forty-seven years at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. She may have participated in more major surgical operations than any other person—physician or nurse—in history. Born on December 19, 1910, […]

Intersection of mental illness, the supernatural, and gender in Pakistan

January 20, 2021

Sualeha Siddiq Shekhani Karachi, Pakistan Man with the spirit of his deceased second wife. William Hope. c. 1920 Credit: National Science and Media Museum. No known copyright restrictions. Maria sits across from me in a pristine clinic room in a private hospital in Pakistan. At first reluctant to speak about her husband’s illness, her […]

Review of Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma

January 19, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover of Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma by Matthew Parris, 2020. The lives of people who seem to be endowed with extraordinary abilities have long been a source of fascination. The famous Italian physician, researcher, and founder of the science of criminology, Cesare […]

The other Timothy Leary

January 19, 2021

Saty Satya-Murti Santa Maria, California, United States Figure-1: Timothy Leary at work, circa 1920. Credit: Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University. Source Most people know the name of Timothy Leary as an American counterculture guru and psychologist who had a massive following in the mid-twentieth century. He invoked the names of Gandhi, Jesus, and […]

Enlightenment from Sherlock Holmes on COVID-19 associated perilous boredom

January 19, 2021

Daniel Gelfman Indianapolis, Indiana, United States Evening silhouette of Sherlock Holmes’s statue at Baker street, the real place where he never lived. Photo by dynamosquito. Taken January 11, 2010. Via Wikimedia Boredom can useful. It can motivate people to do great things. It can also be dangerous by increasing the risk of depression and […]

The finality in their voices II: physiology-defying violent opera death

January 13, 2021

Lea C. Dacy Eelco F. M. Wijdicks Rochester, Minnesota, United States The title character in Werther bleeding profusely from a self-inflicted gunshot wound but still able to sing an extended aria, used with permission from Alamy. In a previous article, we reviewed the plausibility of opera deaths in wasting diseases such as that of […]

Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses

January 13, 2021

Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Harriet Tubman 1822 – 1913 Slave, abolitionist, activist. Suggested to have had visions and dreams as manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Via the Library of Congress. Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, […]

The finality in their voices: Death, disease, and palliation in opera

January 13, 2021

Lea C. Dacy Eelco F. M. Wijdicks Rochester, Minnesota, United States Figure 1: Violetta’s deathbed in La Traviata, from 2009 Glimmerglass Opera production directed by Sir Jonathan Miller. Photo by Richard Termine, used with his permission. I know she had tuberculosis! She was coughing her brains out . . . but still she kept […]

A moonie

January 13, 2021

Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel Untitled blue face, Acrylic on Canvas, 50/70 cm, 2017. Painting by Daniel Wein. Published with permission of the artist. Wally Moon was a legend who stood at least 1.90 meters tall. The most striking things about him were his appearance and his gruffness. When I met him during my […]

Young, pretty, and not quite right

January 12, 2021

Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece Photo by Anthony Papagiannis. Unless we are in pediatrics, we start in clinical practice with our patients tending to be in the age range of our parents, or even older. Increasingly, as the grey in our temples is promoted to silver, their mean age gets closer to ours, and the […]