Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Science

  • Origin of the mind

    Bhargavi BhattacharyyaKolkata, India How are the mind and brain related? The brain is a ball of nerve cells, or neurons. The mind, the functional unit of the brain, includes imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgment, language, memory, and emotions. How do these basic units, neurons, translate to mental faculty? Scientists wanted to look at the function…

  • Head and hand: Claude Bernard’s experimental medicine

    James A. MarcumWaco, Texas, United States Claude Bernard’s Introduction à l’étude de la médecine expérimentale, originally published in 1865, occupies a critical position in the development of experimental medicine and science.1 In the introduction to the book, Bernard claims that “each kind of science presents different phenomena and complexities and difficulties of investigations peculiarly its…

  • Airs and graces: Humphry Davy and science as performance

    Alan BleakleySennen, West Cornwall, United Kingdom The setting is 1799 in Clifton, Bristol, in the southwest of England; and there is something important in the air. A “Pneumatic Institute” has been set up to investigate the potential uses of newly isolated gases such as nitrous oxide in medicine. Humphry Davy, a young, ambitious scientist from…

  • When Darwin was wrong

    John HaymanVictoria, Australia Charles Darwin (1809–1802) is rightly famous, not for the discovery of evolution but for revealing the mechanism by which it may occur, natural selection. He not only formulated this idea, but he also presented evidence to support it and put it forward in a readily understood manner that could be comprehended by…

  • Sports and the uneven playing field

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” — Napoleon (the pig) Animal Farm by George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903 – 1950). The motto of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) — Citius (Faster), Altius (Higher), Fortius (Stronger) is incomplete without “si ego te permitto” (if…

  • Lina Shtern and the blood brain barrier

    Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada Future generations will remember our age for unbelievable electronic progress, but also for the bloody conflicts of World War II, characterized by dictatorial figures that darkened the lives of so many productive, innocent people. Among these was Dr. Lina Shtern, whose pioneer work permitted her to envision and name the blood-brain…

  • The Valsalva maneuver

    JMS PearceHull, England, UK It is a paradox that the discovery of the Valsalva maneuver did not relate to cardiovascular physiology but to the treatment of discharges from the ear. Valsalva’s maneuver is now used physiologically1 to test cardiac and autonomic function, and in several other diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. The surgeon Leonard of Bertapaglia…

  • Mitochondrial DNA: a maternal gift

    Marshall LichtmanRochester, New York, United States DNA is arrayed on twenty-three pairs of chromosomes in human cell nuclei. It is coiled tightly around proteins called histones that together with DNA form a chromosome. The largest chromosome carries several thousand genes and the smallest several hundred. DNA is so tightly wound that uncoiled from a single…

  • Pursuing “conclusions infinite”: The divine inspiration of Georg Cantor

    Sylvia KarasuNew York, New York, United States There is a “fine line between brilliance and madness”: the distinction, for example, between a “revolutionary” mathematical theory and psychotic thinking may well have to do with what can be done with the theory, i.e., its “significant results.”1 “The mentally ill mathematician” is like the “knight errant, mortified…

  • Leonhard Thurneysser: Scholar, alchemist, and miracle doctor

    A highly controversial figure even in his time, Leonhard Thurneysser remains to this very day for some a revered scientist and for others a resolute quack. Born 1531 in Basel, he was the son of a goldsmith and followed in his father’s profession. He also studied with a physician and alchemist but never attended any…