Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: January 2023

  • Dear brainstem, you remind me of the Mona Lisa

    Serena YueHong Kong, China Dear brainstem, You remind me of the Mona Lisa, seated firmly and comfortably atop the spinal cord. The Mona Lisa exudes royalty and class, from her posture and garments to the plump smoothness of her hands. Your elegance also enthralls me, from the sleek medulla oblongata, ascending to the pons with…

  • Christopher Wren’s contributions to medicine

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. Left: Sir Christopher Wren. From James Bissett’s Magnificent Guide, 1808. Wellcome Collection via Wikimedia. Public domain. Right: Blue plaque at Hampton Court Green. Photo by Edwardx on Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. An extraordinary natural philosopher and Renaissance man, Christopher Wren (1632–1723) (Fig 1) was primarily an astronomer and…

  • Learning the vocabulary of medicine (and other foreign languages)

    Edward Tabor Bethesda, Maryland, United States   Some of the sources of medical vocabulary. Photo by author. Both of my parents were physicians, and their discussions were often medical. One weekend when I was about four years old, I listened to one such conversation at lunch and interrupted to ask, “When I grow up, will…

  • On orchids and testes

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “You like orchids?…Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, their perfume the rotten sweetness of corruption.”– John Steinbeck Orchids belong to a widespread group of flowering plants. There are about 28,000 species of orchids worldwide.1 The underground tubers of many European orchids—which contain the plant’s reserve food…

  • Whitlock Nicholl: Physician and theological writer

    Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel   Whitlock Nicholl. c. 1821. In Faraday Consults the Scholars: The Origins of the Terms of Electrochemistry by S. Ross. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. In November 1839, Dr. John Clendinning delivered at the St. Marylebone Infirmary a lecture on the examination of the sick, the principal sources of fallacy attending…

  • Two giants in thoracic surgery: Clarence Crafoord and Åke Senning

    Göran WettrellLund University, Sweden Clarence Crafoord Clarence Crafoord (1899–1984) was one of the most outstanding surgeons in Sweden during the twentieth century (Figure 1). He started his surgical training in the early 1920s. Postoperative complications such as obstructing pulmonary thrombosis were a frequent cause of death. In 1927, Crafoord performed two successful acute pulmonary embolectomies.1…

  • Not just for the sake of ourselves

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney is a painting that I have used often to teach close looking to medical and theological students. The painting is full of details: color, lines, and textures. Faces and body language serve as vessels for emotion and are abundant and finely detailed. It…

  • Comments on Dr. James Franklin’s article on George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War

    Stuart Poticha Chicago, Illinois, United States   In 1966 as a young surgeon who had just completed his residency, I was drafted into the United States Army. Following basic training at Fort Sam Houston, I was sent to Vietnam, where I became the Chief of Surgery of the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi. The…

  • The three knights of thyrotoxicosis

    Of the three physicians who described thyrotoxicosis, Karl Adolph von Basedow is the least known, especially in the English-speaking world. Born at Dessau in 1799, Basedow studied medicine at Halle University, worked as a physician in various cities of Germany, and in 1835 was appointed Director of the Clinic for Internal Medicine at the University…

  • Jean Astruc, the “compleat physician”

    Jean Astruc was born in 1684 in Sauve, France and studied medicine at Montpellier, graduating in 1703. He then became professor of medicine in Toulouse (1710) and Montpellier (1716), superintendent of the local mineral waters (1721), physician to the king of Poland (1729), and professor of medicine at the royal College of Medicine in Paris…