Front Page Mockup July 2020
Volume 12, Issue 3 – Summer 2020 ISSN 2155-3017 For information and announcements visit At a glance Readers are invited to enjoy this selection of articles for the summer. A Cold War Vaccine: Albert Sabin, Russia, and polio, James L. Franklin Did Macbeth have syphilis?, Eleanor J. Molloy Ambroise Pare: standard bearer for barber-surgery […]
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HONORING THE WORK OF THE RED CROSS Published on May, 2020 H E K T O R A M A . ALL BLOOD RUNS RED Clara Barton The American Red Cross (ARC) is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other disasters. Based on […]
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EPIDEMICS Published in March, 2020 H E K T O R A M A . The recent coronavirus outbreak inevitably brings to mind the Spanish flu, the deadly influenza pandemic of a century ago. Here we republish seven articles about this devastating viral disease that spread to the four corners of the world, killing […]
Bloodlust: the embodiment of the uncanny in “The Vampyre”
Emily Cline Montréal, QC, Canada John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, published in 1819, established the conventions of the vampire genre. Though Polidori did draw his inspiration from Lord Byron’s “Augustus Darvell,” the story was wrongfully attributed to Byron by publisher Henry Colburn. This People’s illustrated edition, published in London ca. 1884 and illustrated by […]
Healthcare now and then
BITTER MEDICINE Medical remedies have a long history of unpleasantness, either because their nasty taste could not be masked or perhaps because of a traditional prejudice that a prescribed remedy would not work unless it was bitter, fizzed when dissolved in water, or was painful if given by injection. Classical examples are treacle, castor oil, […]
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TRAVEL AND MEDICINE Published in December, 2019 H E K T O R A M A . DOCTOR MOORE IN ITALY Moore, a practicing physician in Glasgow with a good reputation, was offered an opportunity to travel. Like other prominent noblemen of his day, the young Duke of Hamilton was […]
Avant garde research on a blood substitute at the Hektoen Institute of Medical Research
Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States From Left to Right: Gerald S Moss MD, Richard Brinkman MD, Lakshman Sehgal PhD, Robert Forest DVM. June 1975, photograph of the team with the first baboon resuscitated with stroma free hemoglobin after being bled down to a hemoglobin concentration of zero. Photo taken by the author. The […]
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DA VINCI AT 500 Published in December, 2019 H E K T O R A M A . The year 2019 celebrates the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest painters and polymaths of all time. Born near Florence in 1452, he moved to Milan at […]
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AMERICAN HEART PIONEERS Published in November, 2019 H E K T O R A M A . ALFRED BLALOCK & VIVIEN THOMAS 1930 Nashville. A twenty-year old African American man, honors student, and son of a carpenter had his eyes set on becoming a physician. This was not unfounded. […]
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LATIN AMERICA Published in September, 2019 H E K T O R A M A . AFRICAN AMERICAN MEDICAL PIONEERS The first hospital in the Americas was built by Fray Nicolás de Ovando from 1503 to 1508 in Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti). Named Hospital de San Nicolás de Bari (I), it was located in […]