Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: 20th century

  • How a small town kept smallpox small

    Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands To make a mountain out of a molehill is a vice, but to keep the mole underground is a virtue. The little town of Tilburg in the south of the Netherlands was not accustomed to seeing mountains, but when a molehill first came into sight, it promptly flattened it into the…

  • Unlikely pioneers in renal transplantation: The Little Company of Mary Sisters

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States Dr. Joseph Murray deservedly received the Nobel Prize in 1990 for his magnificent pioneering work in the field of renal transplantation.1 However, it is not widely known that religious sisters from the congregation of the Little Company of Mary also deserve much credit for their support of renal transplantation in…

  • The hunt for a yellow fever therapy

    Edward McSweegenKingston, Rhode Island, United States In March 2020, a research group in China reported the use of convalescent plasma to treat ten patients suffering from coronavirus COVID-19 infections.1 This type of therapy—passive immunization—dates back to 1891 when the German bacteriologist Emil von Behring used horse serum containing diphtheria antitoxin antibodies to treat a patient…

  • Professionalism in crisis: Dr. Winkel and The Third Man

    Paul DakinLondon, United Kingdom Times of crisis may highlight the best and worst characteristics of people. Many of us yearn to be heroes and yet what is revealed under pressure may fall short of our ideal. Doctors share this human frailty. Is medical training and professionalism enough to overcome personal weakness, allowing our behavior to…

  • Epidemic encephalitis lethargica

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Table 1. QUARANTINABLE DISEASES Cholera Diphtheria Infectious tuberculosis Plague Smallpox Yellow fever Viral hemorrhagic fevers Severe acute respiratory syndromes Influenza pandemic From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Legal authorities for isolation and quarantine. Source The pandemic Covid-19 infection, first reported from China in December 2019, reminds us of many…

  • Plagues and prejudice

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, missionaries, and deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles; the overthrow of…

  • Salk and Sabin: The disease, the rivalry and the vaccine

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, MA, United States Jonas Salk was born in a tenement in the East Harlem section of New York City. Albert Sabin was born in Poland and as a child immigrated to the United States with his parents. From these humble beginnings, they would emerge as two of the preeminent scientists of their…

  • Westerbork Hospital—a blessing in disguise

    Annabelle S. SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands This year Westerbork Hospital in the east of the Netherlands celebrates its seventieth anniversary, not of its birth but of its closure. Despite its well-deserved reputation for medical care, it was part of Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Westerbork, a Nazi concentration camp that held persons selected for transport to the death camps. The…

  • Heartache and complicated grief

    Laurie Elise GordonNew York, New York, United States “To whom shall I tell this heartache?” – Old Russian song Medicine is haunted by grief. In tense silences we may sense the specter. Grieving is a normal developmental process, but in some it gets interrupted. A grieving patient calls upon the physician’s most highly attuned empathy.…

  • Women in medicine in Serbia

    Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Draga Ljočić-Milošević, a feminist activist and the first female Serbian physician, dedicated her life to advancing women’s rights. She helped facilitate the emancipation of women in conservative Serbia and campaigned for gender equality in the field of medicine. The vast majority of Serbian women had few educational opportunities during the second half…