Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: epidemic

  • James Herriot and burnout

    Sylvia PamboukianMoon Township, Pennsylvania, United States The James Herriot veterinary stories are so beloved by readers that they have inspired two television series called All Creatures Great and Small and have sold over sixty million copies.1 James Herriot is the pen name of James Alfred “Alf” Wight, who was born in 1916 and graduated from…

  • Encephalitis lethargica

    Encephalitis lethargica was a worldwide epidemic during the years 1918-1930 that resembled influenza. It was first described in Vienna in 1916 by Constantin von Economo in thirteen patients suffering from unusual neurological symptoms that he thought constituted a new entity and called encephalitis lethargica. Similar cases were described at the same time in a French…

  • Mortality data, risk probability, and the psychology of assent in the enlightenment smallpox debate

    David SpadaforaPinehurst, North Carolina The present health crisis is hardly the first to provoke significant controversy about preventing and treating widespread disease. Debate over epidemic-related data, its reliability, and its uses has a long history. So does concern about the psychological elements involved in securing assent from physicians and an endangered population for the use…

  • COVID-19 and the Black Death

    Colleen Donnelly Denver, Colorado, United States During the fourteenth century waves of the bubonic plague washed across Europe. Doomsday books of the age described an apocalypse that wiped out one-quarter to one-third of the population. Today, we are far better at tracking both the numbers of people impacted and the spread of disease, depending on the…

  • Thomas Sydenham, “The English Hippocrates”

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, UK Still Fever burns, and all her skill defiesTill Sydenham’s wisdom plays a double part,Quells the disease and helps the failing Art. -from a poem on plague by John Locke, 1668 From Hippocrates, “Father Of Medicine,” to William Osler, “Father Of Modern Medicine,” plaudits for doctors abound and venerate their varied virtues.…

  • Plague epidemics and the evolution of language in England

    Andrew P. K. WodrichWashington, DC, United States Epidemics have had a profound impact on culture across time. The Antonine Plague, a suspected outbreak of smallpox, wreaked havoc on the Roman Empire of the second century. Amongst its many cultural sequelae, this plague caused a renewed sense of spiritualism and religiosity, which may have created an…

  • Locked down!

    P. Ravi ShankarKuala Lumpur, Malaysia The sun was about to rise on another day of lockdown. At the beginning of a new day there is a vague sense of optimism, but that is followed by an overwhelming sense of tiredness, ennui, and crushed hopes at the thought of being confined within our apartment. My brother…

  • How a small town kept smallpox small

    Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands To make a mountain out of a molehill is a vice, but to keep the mole underground is a virtue. The little town of Tilburg in the south of the Netherlands was not accustomed to seeing mountains, but when a molehill first came into sight, it promptly flattened it into the…

  • COVID-19 and Malta’s Black Plague epidemic of 1813

    Victor GrechPembroke, Malta Malta in the British Empire In the nineteenth century Malta had a population of around 91,000 people and was governed by the British Empire. Despite its small size and absence of natural resources, the island was an important Mediterranean crossroads, with a vital natural harbor and a crucial military base. Malta had…

  • Unmasked

    Kelley ZhaoStony Brook, New York, United States The lecture hall was freezing on the first day of medical school orientation. The room was buzzing with students meeting one another, and the familiar phrases floated around me as I took my seat. “Where are you from?” “Where did you go for college?” Half of the students…