Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: congregation

  • Martin Chuzzlewitt by Charles Dickens

    Although Charles Dickens called Martin Chuzzlewitt immeasurably the best of his stories, it was at first unsuccessful and even caused him to have his pay cut. Suspenseful and gripping, with murders and poisonings, Martin Chuzzlewitt takes place at a time when hospitals were largely places… Read more

  • Pregnancy and art

    Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Pregnancy, the beginning of a new life, was historically uncommon in art. The shape of a pregnant woman does not conform to classical Greek ideals of the female figure, which may have contributed to this rarity. Over time, misconceptions about this necessary,… Read more

  • Anatomy and psychology in George Stubbs’ portrait of Joseph Banks

    Stephen MartinThailandAidan JonesUnited Kingdom Medical investigation techniques applied to art history1 can help solve mysteries, as illustrated by a striking, late eighteenth-century portrait2 (Fig 1) recently acquired for an educational exhibition.3 Its history had been forgotten, but it was identified as an inheritance portrait by… Read more

  • The history of scarlet fever

    Scarlet fever is a highly contagious infectious disease that probably has existed for thousands of years. Ancient texts from China and other parts of the world have described symptoms resembling those of scarlet fever. In the 5th century BC, Hippocrates documented a patient with a… Read more

  • The medical history of Ronald Reagan

    Ronald Reagan was the fortieth president of the United States and the fifth to be shot at by a would-be assassin. On March 30, 1981, a deranged young man, John Hinckley Jr., fired six bullets at him outside a hotel in Washington, D.C. One bullet… Read more

  • The “Republic of Letters” and Jacob Spon

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel The European intellectual community in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was interested in establishing a metaphysical “Republic of Letters” (Res Publica Litterarum or Res Publica Literaria).1-2 It was to be “a great and swirling progression of learning”3 such as that… Read more

  • Inscrutable malice: Ode to a virus

    Barry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States A mere 29 proteins, it punishes the world with an inscrutable malice.Be it another’s agent or a principal, a nefarious actor,it infects, inflames and thromboses according to its nature,Leaving a wake of death, disability, grief, and havoc. But no—not an… Read more

  • Hieronymus Gaubius

    Born in Germany near Heidelberg as the son of a cloth merchant, Hieronymus David Gaubius (1705–1780) was one of the many students of the renowned Herman Boerhaave. He became his immediate successor and like him had studied medicine in the Netherlands at the University of… Read more

  • The smell of dystopia: Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “It’s a sad commentary on our age that we find Dystopias a lot easier to believe in than Utopias: Utopias we can only imagine, Dystopias we’ve already had.”—Margaret Atwood Brave New World1 is a science fiction novel about a high-tech, controlling dystopia.… Read more

  • My second birthday—or date to die?

    Laura ClaridgeSaugerties, New York, United States I was relieved when the date arrived, and my husband, Dennis, moved me into my next month’s home on the eighth floor of Memorial Sloan Kettering, where we both marveled at the difference between this unit and neuro-oncology, one… Read more

  • John Ruhräh, poliomyelitis pioneer and medical historian

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel “The best sailors are those who have studied the charts and records of those who have sailed before.” – John Ruhräh John Ruhräh was a pediatrician and medical historian born to German parents in Chillicothe, Ohio, on September 26, 1872. After… Read more

  • Samuel Auguste Andre David Tissot (1728–1797)

    JMS PearceHull, England The Swiss physician Samuel Auguste Andre David Tissot (1728–1797)*1,2 (Fig 1) spent his professional life in Lausanne, despite tempting offers made by the royalties of Poland and England. He developed into one of the most influential physicians of the Age of Enlightenment:… Read more