Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Columbia University

  • “Am not I a fly like thee?” Drosophila melanogaster and the human genome

    Marshall A. Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States   A fruit fly displaying its large red eye. Among Thomas Hunt Morgan’s many contribution to the burgeoning science of genetics, he observed some male fruit flies had a mutant white eye. By cross-breeding males with mutant white eyes with females with the dominant trait and, subsequently,…

  • Baruch Blumberg who discovered the hepatitis B virus

    Baruch Samuel Blumberg, like Barack Obama, was called Barry by his friends. In 1976 he received the Nobel Prize for saving millions of lives by discovering the cause of hepatitis B, a plague that had afflicted mankind since time immemorial. Born in Brooklyn in 1925, he came from a family that had emigrated to the…

  • Blood and war: Preserving plasma and humanity

    Navanjana Siriwardane Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada   “Charles Drew with Laboratory Apparatus – Charles R. Drew – Profiles in Science.” U.S. National Library of Medicine. National Institutes of Health. Accessed January 4, 2020. Amidst the fighting and chaotic nature of World War II, the need for proper blood banking was greater than ever. Millions…

  • Cournand and Richards: Pioneers in cardiopulmonary physiology

    Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States During World War I among the allied forces were an artillery lieutenant just out of college and a medical student who acted as an auxiliary battle surgeon because of the high mortality among battalion surgeons. They were, respectively, Dickinson W. Richards, Jr. (1895—1973) and Andre Cournand (1895—1988). Eventually they…