Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: bronchiectasis

  • George Orwell: An attempt at a diagnosis

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s better to die violently and not too old…‘natural’ death, almost by definition, means something slow, smelly and painful.”– George Orwell, “How the poor die,” 1946 Many readers of the English author George Orwell (1903–1950) know that he died of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). He wrote Animal Farm, 1984, four other novels, three…

  • Robert Louis Stevenson and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia

    Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, USA   Fig. 1: Edward Joseph F. Timmons, Stevenson House, ca. 1940, oil on canvas, Collection of the Union League Club Chicago. Famed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) traveled to Monterey, California, in 1879 and lived for three months on the second floor of a white adobe boarding house called…