Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Aesthetics

  • Anatomy of the Araimandi

    Shreya SrivastavaAlbany, New York, United States Bharatanatyam is one of the oldest dance forms theorized in text. Originating in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Bharatanatyam dates to an estimated time of 500 BC when it was first described in the Natyashastra, an ancient book based in Hindu philosophy that specifies the physical, social,…

  • “Let the people see what I’ve seen”: beauty, suffering, and learning to see

    John Eberly Raleigh, North Carolina, United States   John Brewer Eberly, Jr. “Study on seeing, 2007.” Personal collection. Charles Stegeman, professor of fine arts at Haverford College, once took up the task of teaching medical students how to draw. He did so because he observed that students who learned to draw well went on to…

  • The benefit of literature to a medical student

    Martin Conwill United Kingdom   In a letter to Benjamin Bailey in 1817, John Keats, who only one year prior was a medical student himself, wrote: “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination – what the imagination sees as beauty must be truth.”1 This proclamation…