Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: articles

  • Drawing blood: Depictions of transfusion in contemporary arts

    Diana-Andreea NovaceanuBucharest, Romania The history of blood transfusion has unfolded in stages, first from experiments on animals, then from animal to human, and finally to transfusion between humans. The subject, in all its intricacy, has been captured by medical illustrators and painters throughout the centuries. Over the course of the last decades, attitudes towards blood…

  • Blood policies and bioart in the 1900s

    Christopher HubbardOhio, United States Policies related to blood that were adopted in the U.S. during the early to mid-1900s produced cultural and legal effects for certain populations. In 1920, for example, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act was passed by Congress,1 which modified how identity classifications and boundaries would be drawn up. The act classified an…

  • Dirty, dark, dangerous: Coal miners’ nystagmus

    Ronald FishmanChicago, Illinois, United States It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,Where the danger is double and pleasures are fewWhere the rain never falls and the sun never shinesIt’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine. From the song “Dark as a Dungeon” – Merle Travis Nystagmus is a repetitive oscillation of the…

  • Political obfuscation and medical speculation

    Charles G. KelsSan Antonio, Texas, United States Politicians have long endeavored to keep their health concerns secret. In US presidential politics, the efforts of both incumbents and candidates to project vitality and minimize frailty have at times bordered on the surreal. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland underwent surgery for oral cancer on a private yacht…

  • In the heart of Damascus

    Kera PanniSeaside, California, United States Even as a child in the American suburbs, I knew my blood flowed from Syria. Relatives said my Jiddoo’s parents were farmers near Homs, and my Sittoo’s family was from the town of Mashta al-Helu in the coastal An-Nusayriyah Mountains. Still, I had only been able to create a fuzzy…

  • Ambroise Pare: Standard bearer for barber-surgery reform

    Mildred WilsonDetroit, MI “There are five duties of surgery: to remove what is superfluous, to restore what has been dislocated, to separate what has grown together, to reunite what has been divided, and to redress the defects of nature.”—Ambroise Pare1 For centuries, barbers throughout Europe assisted monks in bloodletting. In 1163, Pope Alexander III issued…

  • The gift of life—From whom?

    George PantalosLouisville, Kentucky, United States I always thought that donating blood was a good thing to do, but did not get around to it until an intense winter storm left several inches of snow and ice in central Ohio where I was in graduate school in January of 1978. Slick roads resulted in auto accidents…

  • Bleeding science dry: The history of scientific racism and blood

    Matthew CasasKansas City, United States One might be familiar with the expression “We All Bleed Red.” But what exactly does blood have to say about our “humanity”? Ripe with good intention, the aforementioned mantra represents a campaign to promote peace by winning over the hearts and minds of those assumed to be unaware of a…

  • The history of the Red Cross / Red Crescent in blood

    GAP SecretariatPerth, WA, Australia It has been almost one hundred years since the first Red Cross / Red Crescent (RC/RC) blood transfusion service was established by the British Red Cross in 1921. Today, more than 80% of all Red Cross / Crescent National Societies are operating a blood program as a core health and care…

  • Bloody segregation: The story of how Charles Richard Drew found life abundantly

    Amy DeMattGreensburg, Pennsylvania, United States “Desperation, weakness, vulnerability – these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.”—Zadie Smith What if, instead of simply practicing empathy, you could literally become a part of someone else? What if you could join a part of your…