Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Animals

  • Xenotransplantation—giving animal organs to humans

    Dr. Alexis Carrel. Photo originally published by Bain News Service, June 1922. From Flickr Commons project and The Evening World via the Library of Congress George Grantham Bain Collection. Via Wikimedia. No known restrictions on publication.  In the early 1990s a distinguished scientist predicted that within twenty years thousands of lives would be saved by…

  • A brief history of menstruation

    Fangzhou Luo Portland, Oregon, United States   Philammon declaring his love for Hypatia. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. After a few failed attempts to redirect a flirtatious student to “higher pleasures” like music, the Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia resorted to revealing where she was in her menstrual cycle to deter him. The philosopher who…

  • The Schoolhouse Lab

    Edward McSweegan Kingston, Rhode Island, United States   Howard T. Ricketts in Mexico City laboratory. National Library of Medicine “Black measles” was a common name for spotted fever, which regularly killed people in the western United States. Symptoms included a spotty rash on the extremities, fever, chills, headache, and photophobia. No one knew what caused…