Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: February 2021

  • Multiple sclerosis: Early descriptions

    JMS Pearce  Hull, England Clinical MS: Augustus D’Este, McKenzie Fig 1. MS plaques, by Robert Carswell. Source It was almost two centuries ago that the best known and possibly the first detailed patient’s description of multiple sclerosis (MS) was recorded. It survives in the diaries (1822-48) and almanac of Sir Augustus D’Este, the Harrovian grandson…

  • Sir Frederick Treves, who operated on King Edward VII

    Frederick Treves was born in Dorchester in 1853 and studied medicine at the London Hospital Medical College. He gained fame as Royal Surgeon to Edward VII, operating on his appendix just two days before the planned coronation. His decision to operate on June 24, 1902, caused the coronation to be postponed, and considering that the…

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella Scerri Victor Grech  Malta   Portrait of Virginia Woolf in 1902. By George Charles Beresford. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia. “While I was as busy as anyone on the sunny plain of life, I heard of you laid aside in the shadowy recess where our sunshine of hope and joy could never penetrate to you.”…

  • Occupational lung malignancies: role of malachite

    Tamas F. Molnar Katalin Aknai Hungary   Jackson Pollock, Miners, ca. 1934-1938, lithograph on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1966.68. To this very day, malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) remains a serious oncologic, public health, and industrial challenge, a fatal disease in which standard chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy has done little to increase…

  • Crawford W. Long, first use of ether anesthesia

    Crawford Williamson Long (1815–1878) is best known for his first use of ether as an anesthetic. He graduated from medical school in Pennsylvania and walked the hospitals in New York. He then returned home to set up practice in Jefferson, Georgia, a village some 140 miles from a railroad, where professional visits were made on…

  • Sir Patrick Manson—“Father of Tropical Medicine”

    Patrick Manson (1844–1922) was born in Aberdeenshire, qualified in medicine from the University of Aberdeen in 1866, and joined the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service as a medical officer with private practice allowed. He developed a successful and profitable general practice in Amoy and Taiwan, and was unusual in possessing a microscope. Keeping this near…