Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Cicero

  • A rare case report: Near amputation of a leg from a falling book

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Traumatic injuries are common, resulting from war, natural disasters, workplace mishaps, accidents, or sports. But severe bodily damage occurring in a library? In 1359, the famous Italian poet, humanist, and philosopher from Arezzo, Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), was reading a book in his library written by one of his admired Roman scholars, Cicero.…

  • Is history good for you? Pros and cons

    Pro “ . . . a page of history is worth a volume of logic.”– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”– George Santayana “A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass.”– Sioux proverb “[History is] a pact between the dead, the living, and…

  • Our attitudes towards disease, a Ciceronian legacy

    Andrés D. PelavskiBarcelona, Spain Personal letters provide a window into the beliefs, perceptions, and patterns of interpersonal interaction within a society at a given period. Considering that health issues are part of humans’ daily concerns, epistles are a great testimony to the manner in which their writer perceived them. This is much more evident in…