Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Britain

  • Blood relics and contemporary memory

    Robbie PorterWorcester, England In the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich there is an exhibit, carefully preserved in an environmentally conditioned case, which is amongst its most popular and venerated visitor attractions. It is the dress uniform of a rear-admiral in the Royal Navy, and is of the highest provenance. For this is the uniform Lord…

  • The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

    Mawuli Tettey Ghana   The Red Cross Society is a worldwide humanitarian and volunteer-based organization that protects human life and health by rendering assistance to anyone who may need it. In 1862, a Swiss man named Jean-Henri Dunant published a book titled A Memory of Solferino in which he called for the creation of national…

  • Brief encounters

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Quicksilver in blue. Photo by Anthony Papagiannis. Doctor-patient relationships are as unique as the potential pairs of doctors and patients. At one end of the spectrum there is the one-time encounter, usually for some straightforward and self-limiting problem: the doctor may never see the patient again. At the other extreme,…

  • Sir Charles Symonds 1890-1978 , the neurologist’s neurologist

    There was a time when medical practitioners in England would refer their difficult cases to a neurologist paid by the health services to come once a week to consult at the local hospital. Faced with a difficult or puzzling case, this consultant neurologist would send the patient to be seen at the National Hospital for…

  • A proliferation of monsters: art of the weird as expressions of anxiety in Britain and Japan

    Steve WheelerGreenwich, London, England The human fascination with fear of the unknown has been documented in art and literature across civilization for centuries. In every culture, this has manifested itself in the form of creatures as bizarre as they are terrifying. Since the evolution of language, humans have invented and told stories about monsters to…