Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Author: Zachary Sorensen

  • Sushruta, the father of rhinoplasty

    Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States From around 1000–800 BC, a golden age of medicine dawned in ancient India, where ayurveda, the “science of life,” flourished.1 At the heart of this revolution was the legendary physician Sushruta, whose writings in the famous Samhita describe surgeries from cataract removal to treatment of bladder stones, diseases including diabetes…

  • Kadambini Bose Ganguly—India’s first female physician

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The name Kadambini Ganguly is not as well remembered today as those of other female pioneering physicians around the world. In her time, Ganguly was a remarkable trailblazer and the first Indian female doctor to practice Western medicine in India. She was also one of the first women to be admitted…

  • “Filth so foul and stench so offensive as not to be imagined”

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia … during the voyage there is on board these ships terrible misery, stench, fumes, horror, vomiting, many kinds of sea-sickness, fever, dysentery, headache, heat, constipation, boils, scurvy, cancer, mouth-rot, and the like, all of which come from old and sharply salted food and meat, also from very bad and foul water,…