Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: behavior

  • Dr. David Hartley and the benevolent AI

    Erik Anderson Houston, Texas   Leftmost image: Portrait of David Hartley by Schakelton. National Library of Medicine. Public domain. Right images: AI-generated art of David Hartley, created with Night Café on February 2, 2023, using text prompts (e.g., “David Hartley physician and philosopher”) and/or the portrait of David Hartley as inputs. Fair use. Question posed…

  • Tattoos in the twentieth century

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It was in 1972 and you didn’t really go around showing tattoos or talking about them…And now all of a sudden it has become the thing to do.”1– Cher, American singer, actor Placing dyes or pigments into the dermis to form a design dates back at least 12,000 years. Tattooing was seen…

  • Qualis artifex pereo

    Henri Colt  Laguna Beach, California, United States   Man sitting. Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash. This short story is a work of fiction. Translation: “What an artist the world is losing with me!” — cited by Suctonius, The Twelve Caesars, Nero 49; Loeb ed., 2:177   Michael had jet black hair and sorrowful brown…

  • All too human: The mountain gorillas of Uganda

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Ugandan mountain gorilla is a member of the Hominidae family, also known as the great Apes. The extant species include: the orangutan, the eastern and western gorilla, the chimpanzee, the bonobo, and ourselves—Homo sapiens. The mountain gorilla is one of two subspecies of the eastern gorilla. The one…

  • Wounding words

    Charlotte Grinberg Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA   Still Life – A Student’s Table. William Michael Harnett. 1882. Philadelphia Museum of Art. In college, I majored in anthropology. I was interested in understanding the political, social, legal, and economic forces that influence behavior. As language is inherently related to consciousness and culture, its study was central to…