Author: Hektoen International
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Saint John Climacus and The Ladder of Divine Ascent
George ChristopherMichigan, United States Saint John Climacus (St. John of the Ladder) was the abbot of Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai during the early seventh century. He was a student of St. Gregory Nazarian, joined a monastic community at age sixteen, and was known for the depth of his spiritual insights. His book, The…
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The legend of Prester John
In 1187, the army of Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria, recaptured Jerusalem for the Muslim world by defeating the Christian Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin in Galilee. Under the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, the Crusaders briefly retook Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade (1228–1229), but the trend was irreversible, and by 1244…
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Charles V and gout
Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Charles V, Holy Roman-Germanic Emperor, was born in Gent (Belgium) on February 24, 1500. Son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna I of Castille, he was the grandson of Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg and the Catholic Monarchs. In 1517, he moved to Spain to receive recognition from the courts of Castile…
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Rapid eye movement (REM) parasomnia: A historical review
Jiero VirayAberdeen, Scotland Sleep is a physiological necessity for human life. Humans cycle through two phases of sleep known as rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM).1 Each stage is associated with varying degrees of muscle tone, brain wave activity, and eye movements. A summary characterizing REM versus NREM sleep is shown in…
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Viking medicine and health
The Vikings raided Europe for more than 300 years, beginning with their attack on the Northumbrian monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 which caused horror across the continent. They came from Scandinavia, where local communities had lived by farming, fishing, and local trade, but where scarce arable land, political rivalries, and a tradition of seafaring all…
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The Steve Blass syndrome: A case of the yips
Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States He was at the pinnacle of his profession: a baseball champion and hero who had pitched two complete game victories in the 1971 World Series, giving up only seven hits and two runs in eighteen innings while winning the deciding seventh game. In his profile of Steve Blass in The…
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Donne’s “Sonnet X”: “Death Be Not Proud”
Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning…
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Edward Granville Browne and Jakob Polak on Persian medicine
Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel The Cambridge physician-orientalist Edward Granville Browne has described in detail further aspects of Islamic and in particular Persian medicine (9th to the 11th century) in his book Arabian Medicine.1,2 He had studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, earned his M.B. degree in 1887, and through his work and lectures was responsible…
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Amerigo Vespucci and the Columbian exchange
Amerigo Vespucci, the man who gave Americans their name, was born in Florence in 1454. Educated in a cultured family that exposed him to classical literature, astronomy, mathematics, and geography, he eventually entered the service of Lorenzo de’ Medici, working in banking and commerce. In the early 1490s, Medici sent him to Seville as a…
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Byzantine women in medicine
Brady LonerganFarmington, Connecticut, United States Literary and material evidence includes medical treatises ostensibly written by female physicians and references to female medical writers’ pharmaceutical contributions as early as the late classical period (fifth century BCE) in the Greco-Roman world.1 The second century CE physician Galen cites remedies attributed to Spendousa, Aquilia Secundilla, and Antiochis.2 The…