Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: May 2022

  • Egg rhapsody

    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 local woman: “And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she spoke no French, and the merchant got angry for he…

  • Medicine’s pandemonium of paradoxes

    Fergus ShanahanDublin, Ireland “You live and breathe paradox and contradiction, but you can no moresee 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, inaccuracies, and ambiguities, and is in need of reform.2 Paradoxes, on the…

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

    Edward TaborBethesda, MD, United States 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 in 1939, more than two years before the US entered the war. It became a collaboration between Harvard University and the American Red Cross.…

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

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States 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 on the table at every meal. Our South African Apex Expedition guide, Liam Rainier, a consummate…

  • Melville’s Bartleby: An absurd casualty

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel 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 for coining the expression ‘the absurd hero’. Camus used the Greek myth of Sisyphus to illustrate this idea. Sisyphus’s…

  • Daumier’s doctors

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “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 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1000 drawings, 1000 engravings, and 4000 lithographs.1 Balzac said of his work, “There is something of Michelangelo in him.” Daumier hated anything…

  • Villanelle

    Jolene WonChicago, Illinois, United States 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 taskscontinues on, tries not to shed a tear.I did not know today would…

  • Las Animas: A Cuban yellow fever hospital

    Enrique Chaves-CarballoKansas City, Kansas, United StatesDavid SchwartzAtlanta, Georgia, United States John Hay, U.S. Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt, described the Spanish-American War as “a splendid little war” because it was brief and resulted in relatively few casualties.1 The Treaty of Paris, formally signed on December 10, 1898, ended Spanish occupation of Cuba and established…

  • Dr. Gerhard Domagk and prontosil: Dyeing beats dying

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”– Albert Einstein Dr. Gerhard Domagk (1895–1964) was a German pathologist and bacteriologist whose research led to a discovery that saved innumerable lives. He worked for the Bayer chemical company and was also a professor at the University of…

  • Robert James Graves MD FRS

    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…