Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: History Essays

  • The rebirth of medicine

    Constantina PitsillidesHull, United Kingdom Introduction The great scientific advances of Western medicine trace their roots to the Renaissance, the period of thought that rejected medieval monasticism and rediscovered the cultures that preceded it. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks had some notions on how the human body worked, but only during the Renaissance did the breakthroughs…

  • Bank of England Medical Officers: From Napoleonic to modern times

    Charles Raymond GillWalton on Thames, United Kingdom The Bank of England is a venerable institution, founded in 1694 to act as the government’s banker. By the time of the Gordon Riots of 1780, it had evolved into somewhat of a fortress, a military guard being added to prevent the rioters from breaching its walls. Also…

  • A happy individual knows nothing

    Basil BrookeWitwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa It seems that most people, most of the time, tend to avoid the really big questions, the hows and whys of existence, preferring to wait and see what happens when they die. They may tell you, and quite rightly, that whilst alive it is best to get on with the…

  • Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians and their fees

    Barry I. HoffbrandLondon, United Kingdom Since Roman times the means of payment for services rendered defined the place certain groups held in society. Thus the Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals (c. AD 113), refers to a law of 210 BC stating that the services of persons exercising the liberal arts (such as philosophers,…

  • Le Petit Journal, clowns & children in hospital in Victorian London

    Anthony RyanGrace NevilleCork, Ireland Le Petit Journal (LPJ) was a Parisian newspaper published from 1863 to 1944, with a circulation of over a million copies at the height of its popularity in the 1890s when it had a corresponding impact on a large swathe of the newly literate French population of the time.1 As well…

  • Behind the pep: Modern and postmodern perspectives in Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company’s advertising

    Ann W. Robinson New York, New York, USA At face value, the 1930s advertisement for Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound (to the right) elicits mild laughter and dismay. It can easily be interpreted as a sexist, scientifically unsound piece of medical propaganda laced with conformist social ideals, indicative of the era in which it was…

  • Doctorum Ecclesiae: The medical clerics of the Diocese of Bath and Wells, England

    Adam S. KomorowskiSang Ik SongLimerick, Ireland It is difficult to remember that in medieval and early modern Europe the church was often the locus of medical practice and that medicine and religion had a symbiotic co-existence.1 Many of the early Christian Church Fathers, some given the title Doctors of the Church, saw their roles to include…