Author: Hektoen International
-
Medicine in the Austro-Hungarian Empire
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which existed from 1867 until its dissolution in 1918, was one of the most scientifically vibrant states in the world. Its medical culture, centered primarily in Vienna but extending across a sprawling, multiethnic realm, produced some of the most consequential advances in modern medicine. From pathology and psychiatry to immunology and public…
-
The paradox of neurology
Panayiota AntypasLaunceston, Tasmania, Australia Neurologists occupy a liminal zone, oscillating between a fascination with the complexity of the nervous system and an understanding of the devastating impact these diseases have on patients’ lives. During my medical student elective, I became immersed in this duality. Neurology is characterized by paradoxes—hope and suffering, certainty and uncertainty, vulnerability…
-
A wartime disaster that led to a cure in oncology
Prasad IyerSingapore In the harbor of Bari on the night of December 2, 1943, the German Luftwaffe punctured the Italian coastline with fire and hit the SS John Harvey, a ship secretly carrying two thousand mustard gas bombs. A toxic soup of fuel oil and chemical agents blanketed the water and clung to the skin…
-
The violent death of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s tragic poet
Alexander Pushkin, the “Sun of Russian Poetry,” is credited with transforming old-fashioned Russian into a rich, modern, and vibrant language. According to Dostoevsky, “Pushkin came to Russia as a new guiding light, a brilliant illumination of our dark ways.” Nikolai Gogol wrote that “To move from Pushkin to anything else is like moving from a…
-
The bomb that fizzled
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel The recent death of Paul R. Ehrlich (1932–2026) reminds us of the risks of hubris when prognosticating, ignoring human inventiveness, and promoting authoritarian control of society. Paul Ehrlich won the Swedish Crafoord Prize in 1990 (which is awarded in fields not covered by the Nobel Prize) for his post-graduate ethological research.…
-
Freud, Mesmer, and Charcot in modern literature
Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland In modern literature, historical psychiatrists and neurologists sometimes appear as fictional characters. A case in point is found in Jed Rubenfeld’s novel The Interpretation of Murder, which opens with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Sándor Ferenczi arriving in New York in 1909 to deliver a series of lectures on the controversial subject…
-
Ernest Hemingway: A medical portrait
From a medical point of view, the life of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was shaped by repeated physical trauma, chronic disease, hereditary factors, and profound psychological influences. In the world of literature, he is remembered for his minimalist prose—spare, direct, “bare-bones”, and stripped of ornamentation. But behind the muscular sentences and the mythology of masculine bravado…
-
The medical life of Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Raised in New England, she was an abolitionist and feminist, remained unmarried, and became active in reform movements such as temperance and women’s suffrage. As her family always lived on the poverty line, she took on various jobs at an early age and…
-
C.S. Lewis and the medieval model of the universe
Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was a famous author and professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge. Much of his scholarly work focused on the Middle Ages. His work The Discarded Image (1964) concerned the medieval concept of the universe. He drew his material from the writings of the…
-
Public health awareness of cataract
Hosam Halim Amal Halim Menna Elbendary Walaa Asaad Salah Eldean Elsherbini Dalia SabryEgypt During our humanitarian medical outreach campaigns in poor and remote areas, we observed a high prevalence of visual impairment among many patients who presented with advanced medical, surgical, and oncological diseases. Their family members are preoccupied with earning a livelihood, and no…