Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Arpan K Banerjee

  • Book review: Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in our Popular Culture

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in Our Popular Culture by Stephen Basdeo. Following the worldwide COVID pandemic, there has been a plethora of books published on the theme of epidemics and pandemics. Readers may be forgiven if they feel they are now suffering from literary pandemic fatigue.…

  • Book review: A History of Insanity and the Asylum

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of A History of Insanity and the Asylum by Juliana Cummings. Mental health topics have long been a source of fascination. In this new book, author Juliana Cummings explores the history of insanity and asylums from the Middle Ages to the modern era, revealing the sometimes-shocking treatment of…

  • Book review: My Years with the British Red Cross

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The Red Cross is known worldwide as a great humanitarian achievement. The charity was founded by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who was moved by the lack of care available to people who had been wounded in the Battle of Solferino, Italy, in 1859. His idea was to produce national societies…

  • Book review: A History of Women in Medicine and Medical Research

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of A History of Women in Medicine and Medical Research: Exploring the Trailblazers of STEM by Dale DeBakcsy Research and writing on women’s contributions to science and medicine are needed and welcome. Books about science and medical advances have often concentrated primarily on men’s achievements and have a…

  • The Royal Society of Medicine of London: A brief history

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The origins of the Royal Society of Medicine in London can be traced back to 1805. It was in that year that a breakaway group of learned physicians and surgeons formed a new medical society, the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. They met first in Gray’s Inn, the legal area…

  • Book review: The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Cover of The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, edited by PT Keyser and J Scarborough. Classical antiquity has long been a subject of human fascination. The time period covered in this book ranges from around 1000 BCE to 650 CE. The editors have produced…

  • Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield: Inventor of the CT scanner

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The name Godfrey Hounsfield is not familiar to most healthcare professionals, yet his invention of the CT (Computerized Tomography) scanner is one of the greatest radiological advances since Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895. Nearly all modern hospitals have a CT scanner, which enables doctors to make a more accurate diagnosis, especially…

  • Book review: Am I Normal?

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, England   Cover of Am I Normal?: The 200-Year Search for Normal People (and Why They Don’t Exist) by Sarah Chaney “Am I normal?” is a question that many of us ask at some point in our lives. The existential angst of the twentieth century has resulted in a desire to…

  • India’s oldest medical schools

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom 15 August 2022 marked the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from British rule. Since independence, the Indian medical diaspora has successfully settled in countries around the world and contributed greatly to their health care systems. Outside India, few are familiar with the history of modern Indian medicine. India was long…

  • Book review: How the Mind Changed: A Human History of Our Evolving Brain

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of How the Mind Changed: A Human History of Our Evolving Brain by Joseph Jebelli. The human brain has long been a source of wonder and a fascinating subject for study. Philosophers, scientists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and medical scholars have spent lifetimes studying the brain and how…