Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: October 2022

  • Erik Waller the book collector

    Anna LantzStockholm, Sweden Erik Waller (1875–1955) was a Swedish surgeon and book collector who spent most of his professional life in Lidköping, a small town in the southwest of Sweden. He received his medical education in Uppsala and Stockholm before moving to Lidköping in 1909, where he was offered a position as acting hospital doctor.…

  • Emperor Claudius and his physician, Xenophon of Kos

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Drusus Nero Germanicus, Emperor of Rome from 41 to 54 CE, though known to historians, became a household name in 1970 with the advent of the popular television series I, Claudius. But he had already gained attention several decades earlier, engendered by British author Robert Graves,…

  • Love and syphilis: The marriage of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

    Nicolas Roberto Robles Diego Peral  Caceres, Spain   Figure 1. Portrait of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer. Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. ¡Cuánta nota dormía en sus cuerdas, como el pájaro duerme en las ramas, esperando la mano de nieve que sabe arrancarlas! How many notes sleep in its…

  • Gonzalo R. Lafora: Spanish neuropsychologist and neuropathologist

    Enrique Chaves-CarballoOverland, Kansas, United States Gonzalo Rodríguez-Lafora (1886–1971) was a Spanish neurologist best known for his description of intracytoplasmic inclusion bodies (Lafora bodies) in myoclonic epilepsy. Lafora was born in Madrid on June 25, 1886. At the age of four, he moved to Puerto Rico when his father became a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish…

  • The role of doctors in the intellectual life of Spain

    “One of the aspects of Spanish intellectual life which struck me repeatedly was the fact that civic leadership so often rested in the hands of medical men. They wrote the best books, made the most daring statements and were revered as the elements of society that could be trusted to support good movements. The doctors…

  • Famine and illness in War and Peace

    The Pavlograd regiment had lost only two men wounded in action, but famine and sickness had reduced their numbers by almost half. In the hospitals death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling caused by bad food, preferred to remain on duty, dragging their feeble legs to the front, rather than…

  • Great Ormond Street and JM Barrie

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Cover of Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie, 1915. Colorized by Binaire on Wikimedia. Bloomsbury: Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Crop of photo by Nigel Cox on geograph.org.uk via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 2.0. James Matthew Barrie (1860–1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright. He wrote about thirty novels…

  • “All hands to dance and skylark!” – Shipboard dancing in the British Navy

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia “We were all hearty seamen, no cold did we fear;And we have from all sickness entirely kept clear;Thanks be to the Captain he has proved so good;Amongst all the Islands to give us fresh food.”1,2– William Perry, surgeon’s mate on H.M.S. Resolution, 1775 Lieutenant James Cook (1728–1779) is known as a…

  • Drapetomania: A “disease” that never was

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Slavery is next to hell.” – Harriet Tubman “And before I’d be a slave,I’ll be buried in my grave…”– Oh, Freedom, African-American spiritual Slavery arrived in what later became the United States in 1619. Slaves were used mainly as agricultural laborers. In the US South, that meant working with tobacco and cotton…

  • Once a professor…

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   “Good morning, Professor.” Lake Kremasta, Greece. Photo by author. The elderly man I address by this title lies in bed, visibly weak and rather exhausted, a clean white sheet drawn up to his neck. He has been in the hospital for several days now, and the forced immobility has added…