Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Emmanuel Ugokwe

  • An ancient oath with modern significance

    Emmanuel Ugokwe SIA Africa and Society for Young Writers, Nigeria Southeast and SouthSouth Hippocrates of Kos Engraving by Peter Paul Rubens, 1638   About 400 BCE Hippocrates, commonly known as the father of medicine, wrote the Hippocratic oath. That noble, ethical creed still guides the medical profession. Is that what you have been taught? If so, you…

  • Penicillin’s unique discovery

    Emmanuel UgokweNigeria Southeast & South South Scottish-born Alexander Fleming spent almost his entire life as a doctor in London, studying the problems of infection and the use of antiseptics. In 1922 he made a remarkable observation. He took a test tube containing water mixed with inoffensive bacteria that turned the water milky. To this he…