May, 2022 - Hektoen International

Egg rhapsody

May 31, 2022

Girl with a basket of eggs. Painting by Joachim Beuckelaer or his follower, early 17th century. National Museum in Warsaw via Wikimedia. Public domain. In 1490, the famous author and publisher William Caxton wrote of a merchant sailing to France. Stranded on the coast of Kent, he tried to buy some eggs from a […]

Medicine’s pandemonium of paradoxes

May 27, 2022

Fergus Shanahan Dublin, Ireland “Paradox of Medical Progress” graph by author. “You live and breathe paradox and contradiction, but you can no more see the beauty of them than the fish can see the beauty of the water.” – Michael Frayn (Bohr to Heisenberg), Copenhagen1 The language of medicine is loaded with misnomers, […]

Long before Pearl Harbor, an entire hospital was sent to help England in World War II

May 26, 2022

Edward Tabor Bethesda, MD, United States An Allied convoy underway in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland. Photo c. 1942. National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia. Public domain. Harvard University President James B. Conant had the idea of sending a fully staffed hospital to England to help the British in their war with Germany […]

Marmite: Its place in medical history, Lucy Wills, and the discovery of folic acid

May 26, 2022

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Marmite – Photograph taken by the author, April 2022, in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. On a recent visit to Botswana in southern Africa, the author was introduced to a food spread known as Marmite.* Apparently very popular in Africa, a distinctive jar of this condiment was present […]

Melville’s Bartleby: An absurd casualty

May 26, 2022

Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel Titian, Sisyphus, 1548–49, oil on canvas, 237 cm x 216 cm (P000426). Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado. Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a French writer and philosopher. He did not want to be pinned down as an existentialist or an absurdist, or indeed a nihilist. Nevertheless, he is well known […]

Daumier’s doctors

May 25, 2022

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Le médecin : Pourquoi, diable! mes malades s’en vont-ils donc tous?”. Caricature by Daumier. National Library of Medicine. No known copyright restrictions. “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” – Reinhold Niebuhr Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) was a “fundamentally discontented” French social critic, painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He produced over […]

Villanelle

May 25, 2022

Jolene Won Chicago, Illinois, United States Photo by Sandy Torchon on Pexels. I did not know today would be your last – we see no end for those that we hold dear. If I had known I’d not have let it pass. The nurse who knows she can’t set down her tasks continues on, […]

Las Animas: A Cuban yellow fever hospital

May 23, 2022

Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States David Schwartz Atlanta, Georgia, United States Fig. 1. Ward 1 of Las Animas Hospital for yellow fever patients. First published in 1904 by Enrique Barnet in his monograph on Las Animas Hospital.3 Public domain. John Hay, U.S. Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt, described the Spanish-American War […]

Dr. Gerhard Domagk and prontosil: Dyeing beats dying

May 23, 2022

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein Erysipelas infection in face due to streptococcal bacteria. Photo by CDC/Dr. Thomas F. Sellers, Emory University, 1963. CDC Public Health Image Library. Public domain. Dr. Gerhard Domagk (1895–1964) was a German pathologist […]

Robert James Graves MD FRS

May 23, 2022

JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom He fed fevers Robert Graves Fig 1. Clinical Lectures on the Practice of Medicine In Paris in 1828 there was a remarkable epidemic of acute sensori-motor polyneuropathy known as épidémie de Paris. Described by Auguste-Francois Chomel, the cause was a mystery.1 As a neurologist, my interest in […]