Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Afghanistan

  • The wonderful world of vaccines

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Chicago, Illinois, United States   A patient with his whole body covered with smallpox lesions. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, photo by Barbara Rice. Epidemics and pandemics became an issue about 10,000 years ago when hunters and gatherers became farmers and began to live in communities. Smallpox was one of the first…

  • First principles

    Charles G. Kels San Antonio, Texas, United States   Ambulance Corps. Method of removing wounded from the field depicts the aftermath of battle in the American Civil War. The law of war is enshrined in treaties but steeped in blood. In 1859, a young Swiss businessman was traveling through Italy when a savage battle between…

  • Blood mnemonics

    Chris Arthur St. Andrews, Scotland   Henri Dunant (1828–1910), Swiss philanthropist and “father of the Red Cross.” Source Two photographs in Dunant’s Dream, Caroline Moorehead’s meticulous and moving history of the Red Cross, can be juxtaposed to illustrate a key aspect of this organization’s work. The first shows Henri Dunant, now regarded as “the father…

  • To mount a camel

    Larry Zaroff Stanford University, California   For the West, Afghanistan is a country difficult to understand. Though largely Muslim, it is a society made up of multiple ethnic groups and classes, beset by ideological disagreements, with disconnected provinces that are unstable, unconquerable, and often anarchic. All Afghans are culturally mixed, yet are highly independent, believe…

  • Shrapnel

    Christopher J. Schayer New Haven, Connecticut   U.S. Army Flight Medic Sgt. Nathaniel Dabney, second left, of Prescott, Ariz., with Charlie Company, 3-82nd Aviation Regiment- Task Force Talon, directs U.S. Marines as they carry a young Afghan gunshot victim to a waiting army Blackhawk helicopter during a medevac operation, in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, Monday,…