Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Animals

  • Xenotransplantation—giving animal organs to humans

    In the early 1990s a distinguished scientist predicted that within twenty years thousands of lives would be saved by xenotransplantation. His optimism was unfortunately premature and in America today more than 100,000 people are waiting to receive human hearts, livers, or kidneys. Yet despite false starts and disappointments, the dream of using animal organs in…

  • A brief history of menstruation

    Fangzhou LuoPortland, Oregon, United States 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 recorded this—Damascius—does not specify if this student was Orestes,1 who remained a…

  • The Schoolhouse Lab

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States “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 it. The first recorded case in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley was in 1873.1 Twenty-three…