Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: 18th Century

  • The life and death of Franz Schubert

    Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Born on 31 January 1797, Franz Peter Schubert was the twelfth of fourteen children, one of only five who survived infancy. His father was an enterprising schoolmaster and amateur cellist. Born in the Himmelpfortgrund suburb of Vienna, Schubert showed uncommon gifts for music from an early age. His father gave him his…

  • “Plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners”—A brief history of fermented cabbage as antiscorbutic

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia “. . . those affected have skin as black as ink, ulcers, difficult respiration, rictus of the limbs, teeth falling out and, perhaps most revolting of all, a strange plethora of gum tissue sprouting out of the mouth, which immediately rotted and lent the victim’s breath an abominable odour.”– Chaplain Richard…

  • Applause, Honours and Mortification: Admiral Pellew’s psychology of achievement in combatting slavery

    Stephen MartinUnited Kingdom & ThailandAidan JonesUnited Kingdom A revealing, unpublished letter was written by Edward Pellew two months after commanding the Bombardment of Algiers to suppress Mediterranean slave traders. Short, sensitive, and emotional, it is an insight into the psychology of a great battle commander and anti-slavery leader. The surrounding events, stresses, and relationship dynamics…

  • Jean-Paul Marat, physician and revolutionary

    JMS PearceHull, England The murder of the notorious Jean-Paul Marat in his bath in July 1793 by Charlotte Corday is a tale where revolution, art, and medicine each played a part. When the commoners stormed the Bastille royal prison in Paris on July 14, 1789, to defy the Ancien Régime, they struck a blow for…

  • Why do physicians write so badly?

    Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia An old joke is that pharmacists are the only people who can read physicians’ handwriting. This piece is not about handwriting, but about writing style. Compared with great medical authors, like Somerset Maugham, Conan Doyle, Anton Chekhov, John Keats, and Friedrich von Schiller, most physicians are not good writers. (I could have…

  • 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…

  • The derailment of Franklin Pierce

    Jacob Appel New York, New York, United States Few subjects have attracted as much attention from medical historians, both well-founded and speculative, as the health of United States presidents. Considerable debate exists over the extent of impairment caused by Lincoln’s bouts of melancholia,1 Grant’s alcoholism,2 Wilson’s stroke,3 and Coolidge’s depression4—to name only those chief executives from…

  • Book review: John Keats’ Medical Notebook

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for…

  • American ginseng as an herbal emissary influencing Qing-American trade relations

    Richard ZhangPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On February 22, 1784, the Empress of China set sail from New York Harbor.1 Destined for the eponymous country, the American ship carried thirty tons of a wild root—ginseng. The vessel reached Guangzhou via the Cape of Good Hope and returned to New York one year later, laden with Chinese…

  • The Girl with a Pearl Earring—A vanitas?

    James LindesayLeicester, United Kingdom It is a truism that you only have one opportunity to see a picture for the first time. However, in our image-saturated age, by the time you get to see a famous painting in the flesh (so to speak) you will have been so primed with reproductions, commentaries, and received opinions…