Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Dental Institute of the University of Vienna

  • The Manneken Pis: Still peeing after all these years

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Belgium’s culture of excretion goes back centuries.”1– Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, art historian and professor at the University of Paris Artists in the low countries did not hesitate to depict human bodily functions. The great Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–1569) had scenes… Read more

  • Noah Webster’s war on words

    JMS PearceHull, England “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” When Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (III.3) speaks this line, he reminds us of the singular importance of the use of words, and hence the need, even for… Read more

  • Two composers named Arlen

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel “Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony,must investigate discord.”– Plutarch (AD 46–120), Demetrius, sec I Harold Arlen,1 composer of popular music, was born in 1905 in Buffalo, New York, as Hyman Arluck, the child of a… Read more

  • Scientific discoveries in dreams: Sleeping while the mind works

    Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Some major scientific discoveries have been revealed in dreams during sleep. Since ancient times, Western culture has included a deep belief in the power of dreams to provide information. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (c. 500 BC) spoke of how “even… Read more

  • The seventeenth-century plague doctor’s hazmat suit

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “There are plagues, and there are victims, and it is the duty of good men not to join forces with the plagues.”– Albert Camus, The Plague The plague (later called “the black death”) reached Europe from eastern Russia in 1346. By the… Read more

  • The wizards who saved lives

    Ceres OteroMexico City, Mexico Of the various peoples who inhabited prehispanic Mexico, the Aztecs were the most medically advanced.1 According to their mythological beliefs, divine beings were to be venerated for giving life to humans and for creating on Earth a place where they could… Read more

  • Momma’s rocking chair

    Frances NadelPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States January 21, 1929 Poverty lurks in every corner of the Johnson’s one-room house. Even if mother and baby survive this night, winter will continue to prey at their door. The room grows darker as the fire falters to orange ash,… Read more

  • Caring for the mentally ill: The cycle repeats itself

    Robert BiggarBethesda, Maryland, United States A traveler driving through Weston, a small community in the hills of West Virginia, will find it typical of the hundreds of similar bypassed towns: pleasant but a bit run-down and sliding into poverty and abandonment. However, it has one… Read more

  • Medical monuments in St. John’s Church, Kolkata

    Stephen MartinThailand The British architecture of Kolkata, though by no means representative of modern India, has some extraordinary beauty. One of many outstanding sites is St. John’s Church, consecrated in 1787 (Fig 1) and based on James Gibbs’ St. Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar… Read more

  • Relieving pain by injection

    Until the middle of the nineteenth century, doctors had considerable difficulty in relieving the pain of their patients in that they could only administer medicines by mouth, enema, or suppository. The notion of injecting drugs into a vein had been stimulated by the attempts of… Read more

  • Imagined conversation: The day Mitchell and Charcot met

    Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “Professor Charcot, allow me to introduce Mr. Thomas who has travelled to Paris from America in hope that you might assist him with a most troubling malady.” Charcot’s dutiful assistant stepped back and gave a transmitting nod. Charcot returned… Read more

  • Looking for lice in seventeenth-century art

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “As far as we can ascertain, since man has existed the louse has been his inseparable companion.”1 Bathing, and even washing the hair and the face, were not common practices in seventeenth-century Europe. Children and adults of every social class, from the… Read more