Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Army

  • Stamping out preventive medicine

    Michael EllmanWilmette, Illinois, United States In 1965, I became the Chief Preventive Medicine Officer of the United States Southern Command. One of the eleven unified commands of the Department of Defense, the Southern Command was headquartered in the Panama Canal Zone and represented our interests in South America, Central America, excluding Mexico, and the Caribbean—but…

  • A day in Texas

    Steven PerezVirginia, United States It was the late 1980s. I had just been discharged from the Air Force and returned to my hometown of San Antonio, Texas, to look for an internal medicine practice to join. As I waited for responses to my inquiry letters, I found a job in a rural Texas emergency room…

  • The first effective chemotherapy for cancer

    Marshall A. LichtmanRochester, New York, United States Sulfur mustard gas had no influence on the outcome of the battle at Ypres during World War I despite the many deaths and severe injuries it inflicted. Since then, chemical weapons have been used in conflicts at least fifteen times between 1919 and 2016—in the Iraq-Iran War, by…

  • A surgeon and a gentleman: the life of James Barry

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Dr. James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche. Unknown Artist. c1850.   “Do not consider whether what I say is a young man speaking, but whether my discussion with you is that of a man of understanding.”1 – Dedication of the thesis of James Barry In November of 1809,…