Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Literary Essays

  • Somerset Maugham

    JMS Pearce Hull, England I have two professions, not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress; when I get tired of one I spend the night with the other.—Anton Chekov, 1888 As a graduate who abandoned medicine in favor of writing and other careers ranging from poetry to piracy, Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)…

  • E.T.A. Hoffmann’s neurological disease

    Nicolás RoblesBadajoz, Spain Ich bin das, was ich scheine, und scheine das nicht, was ich bin, mir selbst ein unerklärlich Rätsel, bin ich entzweit mit meinem Ich!I am what I seem and do not seem what I am, an inexplicable mystery to myself, am I at odds with myself!— E.T.A. Hoffmann, Die Elixiere des Teufels…

  • Of Mice and Men: A differential diagnosis for Lennie Small

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men,1 the two main characters work as itinerant laborers on farms and ranches in California during the Great Depression. Their only attachments are to each other. George is “small and quick” with “sharp, strong features,” while his companion, Lennie, is “a huge man, shapeless…

  • Gouty quotes

    JMS Pearce Hull, England The recent reproduction of G. Cruikshank’s A self-indulgent man afflicted with gout by a demon burning his foot reminded me of many memorable remarks made by sages of various disciplines (several themselves victims of gout) on the subject. That the excruciating pain of gout (Figs 1 and 2) provokes mirth and ribald…

  • A note on medical metaphors

    JMS PearceHull, England When Winston Churchill memorably referred to his bouts of depression as “black dog,” in two words he painted a picture that embraced feelings, which otherwise would have taken hundreds of words to describe. I have to confess a liking for certain medical metaphors. Though they can be overused in medical and biological…

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella ScerriVictor Grech Malta While I was as busy as anyoneon the sunny plain of life, I heardof you laid aside in the shadowyrecess where our sunshine ofhope and joy could neverpenetrate to you.– Harriet Martineau1 Literary works can illustrate the loneliness and social isolation experienced by people when they are sick.2 The chasm between health…

  • Occupational lung malignancies: Role of malachite

    Tamas F. MolnarKatalin AknaiHungary To this very day, malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) remains a serious oncologic, public health, and industrial challenge, a fatal disease in which standard chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy has done little to increase the chance of survival.1-6 While the role of asbestos exposure in the pathogenesis of the disease is seemingly…

  • Anatomical descriptions in the Iliad

    Maria ChiccoAylesbury, UK The descriptions of battles and duels in the Iliad confer an epic character to its narration. However, beyond dramatic effect, the detailed descriptions of wounds and injuries have attracted the attention and curiosity of generations of readers, especially those with a medical background. Some of the anatomical descriptions appear surprisingly elaborate and…

  • Indo-Europeans and medical terms

    Somewhere around 3,000 to 7,000 years ago there lived in the steppes of southern Ukraine, or perhaps in northern Anatolia, a group of people whom we now call Indo-European but about whom we know very little. They left a few burial mounds, some pottery and skeletons, but their history is obscure. They spoke a presumed…

  • Plain Words, or pandemic medical gobbledygook

    JMS PearceHull, England The great essayist and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) once said: “Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives permanence to the unchangeable past.” I suggest that the problems posed by writers who fail to convey meaning are not new.1,2 As long ago as 1713 the Scriblerus Club was founded to ridicule…