Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Banana

  • “Panama disease”: A pandemic…for bananas

    Elizabeth RudaChicago, Illinois, United States The average person does not go to the grocery store, look around the produce section, and think, “Wow, these foods could be extinct within the next few years.” Yet extinction is possible in the case of the most common cultivar of banana sold today, the Cavendish.1 At the same time…

  • Traditional medicine in Yang Talat district, Isaan, Thailand

    Khwan PhusrisomBaan Dong Bang, Thailand & UK Isaan is northeast Thailand, wedged between Laos and Cambodia. I grew up there, in Yang Talat district, (Fig 1) in the Baan Dong Bang village headman’s teak house, where I saw traditional medicine in use from an early age. More recently I asked villagers including elders, farmers, teachers,…