Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: At Resurrection

  • Viking medicine and health

    The Vikings raided Europe for more than 300 years, beginning with their attack on the Northumbrian monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 which caused horror across the continent. They came from Scandinavia, where local communities had lived by farming, fishing, and local trade, but where scarce… Read more

  • The Steve Blass syndrome: A case of the yips

    Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States He was at the pinnacle of his profession: a baseball champion and hero who had pitched two complete game victories in the 1971 World Series, giving up only seven hits and two runs in eighteen innings while winning the deciding… Read more

  • Donne’s “Sonnet X”: “Death Be Not Proud”

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name,… Read more

  • Edward Granville Browne and Jakob Polak on Persian medicine

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel The Cambridge physician-orientalist Edward Granville Browne has described in detail further aspects of Islamic and in particular Persian medicine (9th to the 11th century) in his book Arabian Medicine.1,2 He had studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, earned his M.B. degree… Read more

  • Amerigo Vespucci and the Columbian exchange

    Amerigo Vespucci, the man who gave Americans their name, was born in Florence in 1454. Educated in a cultured family that exposed him to classical literature, astronomy, mathematics, and geography, he eventually entered the service of Lorenzo de’ Medici, working in banking and commerce. In… Read more

  • Byzantine women in medicine

    Brady LonerganFarmington, Connecticut, United States Literary and material evidence includes medical treatises ostensibly written by female physicians and references to female medical writers’ pharmaceutical contributions as early as the late classical period (fifth century BCE) in the Greco-Roman world.1 The second century CE physician Galen… Read more

  • Slovakia: History, healthcare, and politics

    The present-day territory of Slovakia has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Celtic tribes settled it first, most notably the Boii, who left behind artifacts such as the famous “Biatec” coins. Germanic tribes later moved through the area; then, the Romans incorporated the southern part of… Read more

  • A canvas of grief: Claude Monet’s first wife

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States The fame and adoration of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet rests primarily on his landscapes, bathed in sunlight and nourished with a soothing palette. Much of his oeuvre evokes a peaceful, harmonious, and fleeting moment in nature. But one very… Read more

  • Medical quackery in L’elisir d’amore

    Donizetti’s comic opera L’elisir d’amore (1832) is more than a charming love story set in the Italian countryside. At its core is one of opera’s most memorable charlatans: Doctor Dulcamara. He is a traveling medicine vendor whose snake-oil salesmanship reveals the human desire for magical… Read more

  • Albania: Tradition and resilience in the Western Balkans

    Albania is a small country of 2.5 million people, well worth visiting, known for its striking natural landscapes, rugged mountains dominating much of the interior, and coast offering some of the most beautiful beaches in the Mediterranean. In the north, the Albanian Alps attract hikers… Read more

  • Albanian lovers and magnetism in Così fan tutte

    In Così fan tutte, Mozart and his librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte have the two male protagonists, Ferrando and Guglielmo, return in disguise to test, by wager, the fidelity of their fiancées. The choice of the disguise as Albanians, at first sight exotic and comic, resonates deeply with late 18th-century memories… Read more

  • Marco Polo: A medical perspective

    Marco Polo’s journey from Venice to the court of Kublai Khan and back spanned roughly 24 years, from 1271 to 1295. In his account, Il Milione (also known as The Travels of Marco Polo), he documents many aspects of life and medicine in his time.… Read more