Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Canada

  • William Webster, the first modern Canadian academic anesthesiologist

    Kush Patel Ajax, Canada   Dr. William Webster. Photo by the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society (CAS), 2004. Archival Resources, Preserving the Heritage of Canadian Anesthesiology, p. 5. Permission obtained by the CAS Archives and Artifacts Committee. Until the early twentieth century, anesthetics were a black box, and even though ether and chloroform were commonly used, their…

  • Menstrual health in early Indian medical tradition

    Benjamin Darkwa Edmonton, Canada   Introduction Figure 1. Medical tangka: synopsis of the three humors. Romio Shrestha. Courtesy of the Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, 70.3/ 5479. As one of the oldest medical traditions, Ayurveda has existed for about two thousand years.1 Caraka and Susruta are the most famous medical compendiums of…

  • Doctor Cabbie: No good deed goes unpunished

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Restored Checker cab in use as a wedding photo prop in New York City. Photo by Jim.henderson, May 14, 2011, on Wikimedia. Public domain. “I was bound by an oath that I took.” – Doctor Cabbie   Doctor Cabbie (2014) begins with Deepak V. Chopra (played by Vinay Virmani) reciting…

  • Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau and aeration of the White Plague

    Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   Photo from the Adirondack Experience Museum. Circa 1895. Edward Livingston Trudeau was born in 1848, one year before Frédéric Chopin died of tuberculosis. Trudeau’s extended family eventually included Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, and Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury fame. In his time tuberculosis was killing…

  • In sickness and in health: misogyny in medicine

    Shreya Sharma Ontario, Canada   Image by Rene Asmussen from Pixabay “You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?”1 These words, spoken by the unnamed narrator of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s 1892 short story The Yellow Wallpaper, could have been articulated by many women about their medical experiences. Women have…

  • Omphalos

    Margaret Nowaczyk Hamilton, Ontario, Canada   Chambered Nautilus Shell – detail. Photo by Jitze Couperus. 2008. Via Flickr CC BY 2.0 Once, I linked you to the woman who gave birth to you: for forty weeks, a twisted pearly cord, pulsing with two syncopated heartbeats, bound you two together. It fed you and gave you…

  • Men, women, and idioms of distress

    Mary Seeman Toronto, Ontario, Canada   What pedisyon may feel like. Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels. In all cultures there is a place for illness that is not easily explained by individual pathology. It is usually attributed to larger societal unrest, with some individuals responding to that unrest with somatic or psychological symptoms. When…

  • Quincy—A crusading doctor played by a crusading actor

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Photo of Robert Ito as Sam and Jack Klugman as Quincy from the television drama Quincy. 1977. NBC Television. Via Wikimedia. The television series Quincy, or Quincy, M.E. [Medical examiner], aired between 1976 and 1983 in the US. One hundred forty-six episodes of this program were televised. Quincy was originally…

  • Twins

    John Graham-Pole Clydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada   Artwork by Susan Napier. Published with permission. Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling…

  • Presentism

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Chicago, Illinois, United States   “Elihu Yale; William Cavendish, the second Duke of Devonshire; Lord James Cavendish; Mr. Tunstal; and an Enslaved Servant” Previously hung at Woodbridge Hall of Yale University. Now at the Yale center for British Art. Yale Center for British Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons  The Oxford English Dictionary…