August, 2021 - Hektoen International

A look back at insulin

August 24, 2021

Shrestha Saraf Sutton Coldfield, United Kingdom Sanjay Saraf Sudarshan Ramachandran Birmingham, United Kingdom Sir Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best co-discoverers of Insulin. Library and Archives Canada. Via Wikimedia. As we approach the centenary of the isolation, purification, and clinical use of insulin, it is an appropriate moment to reflect on the impact of […]

Emptiness

August 24, 2021

Sarah Alam New Delhi, India Illustration by Sarah Alam Today I feel just emptiness I am numb more or less, I can’t believe you are gone forever, Will this agony end ever? Your face shines before my eyes, I couldn’t even say goodbye, I never knew those words would be last, Each memory I […]

Queen Juana: The mad or the betrayed?

August 24, 2021

Juliana Menegakis London, United Kingdom Juana I de Castilla, ca. 1500 Master of Affligem. Museo Nacional de Escultura. Via Wikimedia. Juana of Castile is known by her epithet “the Mad.” But was she truly insane? Infanta Juana of Castile and Aragon was born in 1479 to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of […]

The assassination of President McKinley: death from traumatic gunshot pancreatitis?

August 24, 2021

Portrait of William McKinley. by Albert C. Fauley, 1896. Via the Ohio State House. On September 6, 1901, the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, was shot twice with a concealed weapon by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo, New York. […]

Sports and the uneven playing field

August 23, 2021

Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States An illustration from Clinical Gynecology Medical and Surgical by Keating JM, Coe, Clark H. Published by Lippincott, Philadelphia in 1895. The illustration is labeled as Masculine pseudo-hermaphroditism but it appears to be of a patient with Persistent Mullerian Duct Syndrome with one discrepancy. Such a patient would not […]

Eugen Bleuler and schizophrenia

August 20, 2021

JMS Pearce East Yorks, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Eugen Bleuler, 1900. from: G. Wehr, Jung, ed. René Coeckelberghs, Collection Les Grands Suisses, ISBN=2-8310-0009-2. Clinique du Burghölzli. Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) (Fig 1) was one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time, best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia to […]

Painting an ICU

August 19, 2021

Mark Tan Northwest Deanery, England, United Kingdom Claude Monet’s Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies from 1899. Princeton University Art Museum. Wikipedia. “[Monet was] only an eye – yet what an eye.” — Paul Cézanne Much has been written about Claude Monet’s ophthalmic pathology.1-4 However, attributing his stylistic development to cataracts alone seems an […]

Aunty Felicia

August 18, 2021

Boma Somiari Port Harcourt, Nigeria Photo by Liza Summer from Pexels I can’t stand blood. So my goal was to stay as far as I could from hospitals and all they come with. But then change came to me when Aunty Felicia came to my village with a missionary organization that chose medicine and […]

Art or science, doctor or shaman?

August 18, 2021

Ihar Kazak Florida, United States BEFORE: Centuries ago, such ailment was treated by a shaman. Image credit: A surgeon treating an injury to a man’s foot. Oil painting by a follower of David Teniers the younger. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark It all started with a scratch on my right ankle during a close […]

Peter Panum and the “geography of disease”

August 18, 2021

Kathryne Dycus Madrid, Spain Peter Panum. Scan from P. Hansens “Illustreret Dansk Litteraturhistorie”, anden meget forøgede udgave, 2. bind, 1902. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia. In 1846, the Faroe Islands experienced an outbreak of measles, the likes of which had not been seen in sixty-five years. The Danish government called upon a newly graduated physician, […]