Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: code

  • Galactagogues in postpartum rituals

    Puja PersaudTrue Blue, Grenada, West Indies Having a baby demands drastic changes in lifestyle, eating habits, and sleeping patterns. Many cultures across the world practice postpartum rituals that “allow the mother to be ‘mothered’,” and help to “facilitate the transition into motherhood.”1 For generations, the… Read more

  • Discovering genius: The neurobiological substrate of intelligence

    Helena LjuljZagreb, Croatia “It is by the shape and size of the forehead that we are to judge of the extent of a man’s understanding… When the frontal vein appears distinctly in the midst of a forehead, open, uniform, and regularly arched, it announces extraordinary… Read more

  • Ancient remedies for modern times

    Vicky LiDallas, Texas, United States “To a synthetic chemist, the complex molecules of nature are as beautiful as any of her other creations.”– Elias James Corey (Nobel Lecture, 1990)1 As the Vietnam War raged through the 1960s, the Northern Vietnamese army faced its greatest foe… Read more

  • Book review: Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK I do not use superlatives lightly, but this is an extraordinary book. It is ambitious in scope and seeks to describe the progress of humanity from earliest times with an emphasis on the role of infectious diseases in our cultural, economic,… Read more

  • The Foundling Hospital and Dr. Richard Mead

    JMS PearceHull, England [Mead] physician who lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man– Dr. Samuel Johnson (Boswell’s Johnson IV. 222) The Foundling Hospital in Lamb’s Conduit Field in Bloomsbury (Fig 1) was established in 1739 to provide a safe home… Read more

  • The Mind of Covid-19

    Terrance JonesChicago, Illinois, United States The Mind of Covid-19 reflects and recalls the one year and two months stuck in my home during the pandemic. Lots of reflection, creation, curiosity, worry, stress, fear, loss, and inspiration. An explosion of color depicts the ugliness of the… Read more

  • William Budd and typhoid fever

    William Budd. From lithograph published by A.B. Black, 1862. Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. In the year 1811 when William Budd was born, medicine was still in its dark ages. Physicians dressed in black and wore top hats, surgeons operated in street clothes without anesthesia,… Read more

  • Forgotten pioneers of pediatric cardiac surgery

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States Credit for pioneering heart surgery in children is primarily given to Robert Gross of Boston Children’s Hospital and Alfred Blalock at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. However, two Chicago surgeons who saved many lives with their innovations in the same… Read more

  • Greater than the sum of her parts: The journey of a medical student

    Japjee ParmarAmritsar, Punjab, India “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked, and beyond and above these figs were many… Read more

  • Temporary insanity in tropical waters

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean’s azure bed, Enamell’d fields and verdant trees: With eager haste he longs to rove In that fantastick scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And… Read more

  • William Webster, the first modern Canadian academic anesthesiologist

    Kush PatelAjax, Canada Until the early twentieth century, anesthetics were a black box, and even though ether and chloroform were commonly used, their physiological effects were little known and felt nothing short of wizardry.1 No wonder Dr. John Warren cried “this is no humbug!” on… Read more

  • Robert Hooke and Micrographia

    JMS PearceHull, England It is perhaps rash to attempt to appraise the work of Robert Hooke (1635–1703), but renewed attention is merited to a great scientist whose contribution to medicine and science has not been adequately acknowledged. Robert Hooke was a scientist and biologist who,… Read more