Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: code

  • Early surgery of meningocele

    JMS PearceHull, England A variety of dysraphic states, recorded since antiquity, (Fig 1)1 are caused by the failed closure of the neural tube during the fourth week of embryonic life. They include hydrocephalus, Chiari malformations, and various types of spina bifida with meningocele or meningomyelocele.… Read more

  • Book review: Understanding the NHS

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The National Health Service in the United Kingdom was founded in 1948 by Aneurin Bevan, a Welsh Labour Party politician and health minister in Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government. Bevan was a coal miner before entering Parliament in 1928. He… Read more

  • Robert the Bruce

    Robert the Bruce and leprosy King Robert I of the Scots (1274–1329), better known as Robert the Bruce, is revered in Scotland as a national hero. He is principally remembered for defeating the English at Bannockburn in 1314 and thereby restoring the independence of Scotland… Read more

  • Arthur William Mayo-Robson

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Arthur William Robson (1853–1933) (Fig 1) was born the son of a chemist John Bonnington Robson, in Filey, a popular Yorkshire seaside resort.1 He later added Mayo to his surname. He is reported as attending Wesley College in Sheffield, though… Read more

  • Bone headdress

    Susan SampleSalt Lake City, Utah, United States After artwork created by a person with cancer Why tens of bones linkedwith silver chain intoan earthly veil? I gaze at other entries:hand-stitched quiltswith undulating seams. I am accustomedto O’Keeffe’s paintingof the lone cow skull; Ezekiel’s storyof dry,… Read more

  • The painting of the Good Samaritan in Bracciano Castle

    Stephen MartinThailand The Orsini of Bracciano were one of the richest and most powerful aristocratic families in early modern Italy.1 Much of their impressive collection remains in Bracciano Castle, Lazio,2 and includes an early painting of the Good Samaritan described by Saint Luke. It is… Read more

  • Going berserk

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Berserk: frenzied, furiously, or madly violent.– Oxford English Dictionary The word berserkr in the original dialect probably meant “bear-shirt” because the berserkers fought wearing only bear skins.1,2 The bear, not the lion, was the “king of the beasts” in Europe until the… Read more

  • Dream on

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States ChartThis is a 32-year-old female with widely metastatic breast cancer admitted to the hospital for control of shortness of breath and pain. ____ Melissa sits slumped, mouth open, snoring. I pull a chair bedside and gently touch her shoulder.… Read more

  • Berzelius, father of Swedish chemistry

    Born in 1779 in East Gotland in the southern part of Sweden, Jons Jacob Berzelius descended from an old Swedish family in which many of his ancestors had been clergymen. His father, a schoolteacher, died when he was four years old. His mother soon remarried… Read more

  • The Scriblerus and other clubs

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when transport was by horse and carriage, the opportunities for scholars and inventors to exchange ideas was limited. Consequently, there arose a number of small private gentlemen’s clubs, where members gathered for congenial or… Read more

  • Dr. Oriol Mitjà: seeking to understand old and new infectious diseases

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Research needs to give answers to real problems.”– Dr. Oriol Mitjà Dr. Oriol Mitjà (b. 1980) earned his M.D. degree from the University of Barcelona. He then completed an internal medicine residency, followed by a fellowship in infectious disease. He earned a… Read more

  • Egg rhapsody

    In 1490, the famous author and publisher William Caxton wrote of a merchant sailing to France. Stranded on the coast of Kent, he tried to buy some eggs from a local woman: “And he asked specifically for eggs, and the good woman said that she… Read more