Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: bilateral sciatica

  • The Doctors’ Riot of 1788

    Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States In the wake of the American Revolution, slavery remained a key part of the United States’ economy. Even the northern states were not exempt; in the waning years of the eighteenth century, slaves made up nearly 20% of the population… Read more

  • The financial affairs of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    After more than 200 years, the music of the great genius Mozart has remained unsurpassed and the interest in various aspects of his life continues unabated. Most medical authorities now believe that he died from Henoch-Schönlein nephritis with severe edema, hypertension, and neurological complications in… Read more

  • Whale tales: Old and new

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Oh, are you from Wales? Do you know a fella named Jonah? He used to live in whales for a while.”– Groucho Marx The biblical story of the prophet Jonah and the whale is well known. Jonah does not want to accept… Read more

  • Wilfred Harris and periodic migrainous neuralgia

    JMS PearceHull, England The turn of the twentieth century marked an era when throughout Europe clinical neurology was evolving rapidly as an erudite specialist discipline based mainly on clinicopathological observations and correlations. Its English leaders were John Hughlings Jackson and David Ferrier followed by Henry… Read more

  • The lady in red

    Mary Liz OvercashGalveston, Texas, United States The long-term care facility was tucked in the back of a strip mall, behind restaurants and sporting goods stores, as if someone had hidden it away. As I wandered through the halls looking for my patient’s room, I didn’t… Read more

  • Denis Burkitt, surgeon and epidemiologist (1911–1993)

    At the age of forty-three, Denis Burkitt acquired eponymous immortality by having an important disease named after him. Born in Northern Ireland in 1911, he received an early education in a highly religious family that emphasized prayer, study of the Bible, and service to others.… Read more

  • Dr. William Shippen, surgeon and educator in colonial America

    William Shippen Jr. (1736–1808) was a prominent medical person in early American history. Born in Philadelphia in 1736, he came from a well-connected family and received his training at the University of Edinburgh, at the time considered the best medical school in the English-speaking world.… Read more

  • Mercury poisoning and the death of John Wilkes Booth

    Matthew D. TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United StatesJason SappJoint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, United States Introduction On April 26, 1865, twenty-six soldiers of the 16th New York Cavalry Regiment surrounded a barn on the Garrett farm in Virginia. Hiding within the barn were two refugees, one of them… Read more

  • The bizarre history of the bezoar

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “As for the bezoar [we removed] …we have restricted ourselves from employing its therapeutic power in the practice of medicine.”1– John Moffat, M.D. A bezoar is a compact mass of material that may be found in the digestive tract of mammals, including… Read more

  • Endurance

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece One of the things we learn in medicine, not from books but from the daily encounters with patients over the years, and which never stops pleasantly surprising us, is man’s endurance in all kinds of adversity and hardship, including serious health… Read more

  • Credé’s maneuver

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Carl Siegmund Franz Credé (1819–1892) was a German gynecologist and obstetrician born in Berlin. In 1852, he became director of the Berlin School of Midwives and head of the maternity division of the Berlin Charité Hospital. Later, he moved to Leipzig.… Read more

  • Self-regulation in peril

    Yasmina Rebani-LeeNew York, New York, United States One day on my walk home, I began to tally up the number of vapor shops, or vape shops, I came across. To my dismay, I found that four of these shops had sprouted within a five-block radius,… Read more