Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: History Essays

  • The death of Zachary Taylor: The first presidential assassination or a bad bowl of cherries?

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Zachary Taylor was a true Southerner born into a prominent family of plantation owners in Orange County, Virginia, on November 24, 1784, During his childhood his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. In 1808 he obtained a commission as a first lieutenant in the army. In 1810 he married Margaret…

  • Women in the medical profession: The trial of Jacoba Felicie de Almania

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States In November 1322 a group of folk healers and empirics were put on trial by the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Paris. Their crime was practicing medicine without licenses issued by the university. The punishment was excommunication and a fine of sixty Parisian livres.1 Among the group was…

  • Two great Scots: John and William Hunter

    B. Herold GriffithChicago, Illinois, United States Excerpted from a presentation at the meeting of the Society of Medical History of Chicago October 3, 2006 Of the many surgeons who have had ties to Glasgow over the past 500 years or so, the most famous were the Hunter brothers, and a century later, Sir Joseph Lister.…

  • The search for Eisenhower’s adrenal tumor

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States For most Americans, the knowledge of Dwight Eisenhower’s health history is limited to the fact that he had a serious heart attack while president. However, a seemingly casual comment by a non-physician political scientist, Robert E. Gilbert, in his book The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White…

  • A Tale of Two Tonics: Sino-Western psychopharmaceutical modernity in Shanghai, 1936

    Richard ZhangPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Shanghai, 1936: Positioned at the Yangtze Delta, this sprawling, bustling seaport was a multiplicity of cities. It was China’s most lucrative commercial hub for many business elites; a lavish, cosmopolitan adopted home for expatriates from at least forty-eight different nationalities; and a chaotic urban jungle for prostitutes, gangsters, and slum-dwellers…

  • Joseph Merrick, “The Elephant Man”

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom As a specimen of humanity, Merrick was ignoble and repulsive; but the spirit of Merrick, if it can be seen in the form of the living, would assume the figure of an upstanding and heroic man . . .6 The life of Joseph Merrick, also known as “the Elephant Man,”…

  • Science versus religion: The medieval disenchantment

    JMS PearceHull, England History is a novel whose author is the people.—Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863) In medieval times, knowledge, beliefs, and faith were largely centered upon a divine being. Christianity had replaced the paganism and barbarism of earlier centuries. Most experiences not explained by religious creed were attributed to mysterious forces of enchantment. The gradual…

  • Trying to conceive: Royal fertility issues in Renaissance times

    Julius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Dynasties beget legacies. An enduring legacy is important to all great leaders. However, dynasties need time—time to accomplish major national objectives or memorable feats. Today that is why our elected officials, to pass on a lasting legacy, spend much of their time campaigning for their next election. In ancient and…

  • A sporting end to Henry II, King of France

    Julius P. BonelloAdam AwwadPeoria, Illinois, United States Since the first wheel rolled out of the mouth of a cave, sports have been a staple in our social fabric. From throwing balls to picking up sticks, from tug-of-war to wrestling, from chess to football, and from horse racing to car racing, sporting events have united humans.…

  • The other Charles Darwin (1758–1778)

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom “’Precursoritis’ is the bane of historiography.”—Stephen Jay Gould One of the best-known and important discoveries in the practice of medicine was the introduction of digitalis by William Withering (Fig 1). It was the subject of controversy that involved the Darwin family. For almost two hundred years digitalis was the mainstay…