Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Charité Hospital

  • Medical and other memories of the Cold War and its Iron Curtain

    Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe Dundee, Scotland, UK In 1946, Winston Churchill named the political barrier appearing between the Soviet bloc and the West the “Iron Curtain.” It lasted until 1991. I met or crossed it several times. The first time was around 1950. The family flew a war-surplus box-kite on Parliament Hill, overlooking Hampstead, London. The reel broke.…

  • Charite hospital

    Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands On November 14, 1709, King Frederik I of Prussia planted a small seed that over the following three centuries grew, branch by branch, into one of the foremost medical research and treatment centers in the world. Plague House, 1709 In 1709 a malignant outbreak of bubonic plague that had almost depopulated…