Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: club foot

  • Abraham Colles—Giant among surgeons

    Abraham Colles was born in Kilkenny in Ireland in 1773. The story has it that as a boy he found an anatomy book in a field after a flood had destroyed a doctor’s house. He took the book to his owner, a Dr. Butler, who, finding he was so interested in it, let him keep…

  • Madame Bovary: The clubfoot operation

    Charles Bovary is a country medical practitioner, mediocre, a simple man, not the brightest, but not unambitious. He reads that a simple tendon cutting operation could cure the village stable boy’s club foot, perhaps also bringing recognition to himself and celebrity to the village. At night he studies, trying to work things out. Is it…