Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Australia

  • Christopher Wren and blood circulation

    Richard de GrijsSydney, AustraliaDaniel VuillerminBeijing, China “A young man of marvellous gifts who, when not yet sixteen years of age, advanced astronomy, gnomonics, statics, and mechanics by his distinguished discoveries, and from then on continues to advance these sciences. And truly he is the kind of man from whom I can shortly expect great things.”…

  • Health care in Nigeria

    Obinna Ejide Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria A brilliant young student at the University of Calabar in Cross Rivers State, Nigeria, died recently during a strike of the doctors at the university teaching hospital. This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred in Nigeria. In September 2017 a pregnant woman died…

  • The thousand-year-old rainforest shamanistic tradition of healing touch

    Søren VentegodtCopenhagen, Denmark An interview with the last Aboriginal healer from the Kuku Nungl (Kuku Yalanji) tribe on the sacred art of healing touch in Far North Queensland, Australia. The indigenous people of Australia, the Aboriginals, have an ancient tradition of healing that uses only talk, touch, and other active principles. In contrast to the…

  • Medical mysteries and detective doctors: Metaphors of medicine

    Roslyn WeaverSydney, Australia Most classical detective novels start out with a community in a state of stable order. Soon a crime (usually a murder) occurs, which the police are unable to clear up. The insoluble crime acts as a destabilizing event, because the system of norms and rules regulating life in the community has proved…

  • The “Bangka Island Massacre”: Australian military nurses in the Pacific War

    Angharad FletcherLondon and Hong Kong “Civilian nurses, bound on errands of mercy among the worst underworld dens, are never in danger from the most hardened criminals. But Australia’s nurses were not safe from the Japanese. No British citizen forgets the name of Nurse Edith Cavell. Australia now has her own Edith Cavells to remember.”1 Sometime…