Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: code

  • Book review: Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in our Popular Culture

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Following the worldwide COVID pandemic, there has been a plethora of books published on the theme of epidemics and pandemics. Readers may be forgiven if they feel they are now suffering from literary pandemic fatigue. However, this interesting new book sets… Read more

  • Keeping corpses company

    Nater AkpenMakurdi, Benue State, Nigeria Inspired by an error where he had misjudged the time since death—not by hours or days—by 112 years,1 William Bass set up the Anthropological Research Facility in Tennessee. His request to his dean was simple: Give me some land to… Read more

  • Anna Morandi, famous anatomist of Bologna

    Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714–1774) was an Italian anatomist and sculptor who created some of the most beautiful and accurate anatomical models of her time. She came from a Bologna family of artists and scientists, her father being a painter and her mother a midwife. While… Read more

  • Unconventional wisdom: A risky business

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.– Carl Sagan Surgical advances typically occur in small, incremental steps. Major changes are resisted vigorously, particularly when children are affected. Occasionally, a seemingly outlandish… Read more

  • Ondine’s curse: You sleep, you die

    Trisha KesavanTamil Nadu, India In the 16th century, philosopher Paracelsus wrote about undines as nymphs that gained souls by marrying humans.1 According to German mythology, Ondine or Undine was a water nymph (de la Motte Fouque’s version) who married a knight, Huldbrand, and gained a… Read more

  • Raynaud’s phenomenon

    JMS PearceHull, England In 1862, Maurice Raynaud (1834–81) of Paris provided one of the finest descriptive accounts in clinical medicine in his doctoral dissertation on episodic digital ischemia. Yet lasting recognition came only after his death. He described twenty-five patients, twenty of whom were female, and… Read more

  • Book review: A History of Insanity and the Asylum

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Mental health topics have long been a source of fascination. In this new book, author Juliana Cummings explores the history of insanity and asylums from the Middle Ages to the modern era, revealing the sometimes-shocking treatment of people with mental illness… Read more

  • Saved by the spoonful: Oral rehydration therapy (ORT)

    Mariam AbdulghaniMichigan, United States In the early 1970s, the Bangladesh Liberation War caused a mass exodus of refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) into West Bengal, India. Some ten million people found sanctuary in camps along the Indian-Pakistan border, where the conditions of war during… Read more

  • Electroconvulsive therapy: Misunderstood, yet effective

    Angelina KohMelbourne, Australia Introduction Amongst all the treatments in psychiatry, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is perhaps the most misunderstood and controversial.1 Its portrayal in popular media and misuse in history have contributed to its reputation, despite ECT being an effective treatment for severe and refractory affective… Read more

  • Alfred Adler

    JMS PearceHull, England The understanding of mental illness was barren until Freud’s time, scarcely risen from medieval notions of madness, moral inferiority, and witchcraft. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) began his career in histology and experimental physiology during six years spent in Ernst Brucke’s laboratory. He published… Read more

  • Alexa Canady, MD: The first Black woman neurosurgeon

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”– Albert Einstein Alexa Canady (b. 1950) was the daughter of Clinton Canady, Jr., DDS, and Elizabeth Canady, a civil rights activist and the first African American to serve on the Michigan Board… Read more

  • The Doctors’ Trial and the Nuremberg Code

    Shabrina JarrellCharleston, West Virginia, United States Tracing back to the Hippocratic Oath, which dates to around 400 BC, the principle of autonomy has been fundamental to the concept of informed consent.1,2 The Oath, a pledge historically taken by physicians, outlines several guarding principles of medical… Read more