Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: blood

  • Walter E. Dandy, one of the founders of neurosurgery

    Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Three pioneers established the discipline of neurosurgery. They were the British surgeon Victor Horsley and the Americans Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy. Both Americans were surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dandy (1886-1946) was the youngest. His innovations include the first clipping of an intracranial aneurysm, the surgical management…

  • A brief history of menstruation

    Fangzhou LuoPortland, Oregon, United States After a few failed attempts to redirect a flirtatious student to “higher pleasures” like music, the Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia resorted to revealing where she was in her menstrual cycle to deter him. The philosopher who recorded this—Damascius—does not specify if this student was Orestes,1 who remained a…

  • Parental grief

    Ellen ZhangBoston, Massachusetts, United States We didn’t know the ending because this was usback then. Sometimes wanting is not enough.When the oncologist spoke. While you startedto cry only because your mother did. As we cradledyou gently. Beyond the singularity of such moments. There is a universal grieving for parents losing a child.All things lead to…

  • The proximity of death

    Paul C. RosenblattSt. Paul, Minnesota, United States In September 1951, I was a very sick twelve-year-old, covered with bruises and red dots where blood vessels were leaking. My nose had been bleeding for days and nothing we did stopped it. My blood was not clotting. The morning my mother took me to the University Hospital…

  • Schistosomiasis

    Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States She was admitted to Ain Shams Hospital in Cairo after vomiting blood, having slipped into Nile mud while harvesting sugar cane eighteen months before. Surprisingly, she had not fallen into the current, but had regained her footing and survived her fall. Although all seemed well for the next year…

  • Atrocities in Asia: Japan’s infamous Unit 731

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In 1931 the Japanese army occupied the province of Manchuria in north-east China and continued to invade and occupy more of China as well as Southeast Asia and the western Pacific islands. The Japanese war machine needed the natural resources of these conquered territories in order to continue to expand its sphere…

  • Cancer and eye diseases: two birds killed with one stone, anti-VEGF antibody

    Ashok SinghChicago, IL, United States Various cells in the human body, such as lymphocytes, monocytes, and all tissue cells release small proteins that, unlike hormones, which act at distant sites, have powerful effects on only neighboring cells. These proteins go under a variety of names such as paracrine factors, growth factors, or, more generally, cytokines…

  • Syndrome de Lasthénie de Ferjol

    Krishna BadamiChristchurch, New Zealand Several years ago we saw a young woman who had an iron deficiency anemia, caused not by blood loss from menstruation (a common cause of iron deficiency anemia in females), but by repeatedly drawing her own blood by venipuncture and discarding it. This type of anemia caused by a specific self-harm…

  • William Harvey before King Charles I

    In 1628 William Harvey published his classic work De Motu Cordis (Of the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals) demonstrating that the blood passed from the left ventricle to the capillaries at the periphery and back through the veins to the right side of the heart. He received many honors for his work, and…

  • Blood is the life

    Saameer Pani Sydney, Australia Vampire—the very word itself conjures up images of supernatural creatures who look not unlike you and me, prowl about at night, prey on unsuspecting souls, and sink their fangs into innumerable, hapless victims to quench their thirst for blood. Monstrous but beautiful, repulsive yet magnetic, vampires have fascinated us for centuries…