Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: echocardiogram

  • General Robert E. Lee’s myocardial infarction: Did illness impact the Battle of Gettysburg?

    Lloyd Klein San Francisco, California, United States   Robert E. Lee in March 1864[?]. Photo by Julian Vannerson. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Ascribing the loss of the Battle of Gettysburg to an illness of General Robert E. Lee became common among historians thirty years ago. The legend of his apparently poor…

  • Wounding words

    Charlotte Grinberg Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA   Still Life – A Student’s Table. William Michael Harnett. 1882. Philadelphia Museum of Art. In college, I majored in anthropology. I was interested in understanding the political, social, legal, and economic forces that influence behavior. As language is inherently related to consciousness and culture, its study was central to…

  • The story of a scar

    Michael Ellman Wilmette, Illinois, United States   Needle and thread stitching up a wound, artwork. By Mary Rouncefield. CC BY-NC The six-inch scar is high over my left femoral artery in my inner thigh. It is healing well now and is pain free. The scar marks the place where a vascular surgeon extracted a clot…

  • Echocardiogram: the first ultrasound picture of the moving heart

    Göran Wettrell Sweden   Figure 1. The first recorded echocardiogram from 29 October 1953. Upper panel echo from anterior chestwall (E1) to the posterior wall of the left ventricle (E2). Lower panel echo (E2) of the posterior left ventricular wall recorded at a larger scale (cm).  Image from the South Swedish Society of Medical History.…