Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: famine

  • Feast or famine: Food in the art of Bruegel

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   The Peasant Wedding. Peter Bruegel the Elder, 1566–9. Via Wikimedia.  “Famine was part of everyday life.”1   Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525–1569), one of the most accomplished Netherlandish painters, often used peasant life as his subject. The survival of peasant agricultural society depended entirely on the success of their crops.…

  • The navel of the world: belly buttons, innies and outies

    John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Rounded stones near Ahu Te Pito Kura on the north-eastern coast of Easter Island. Thought to symbolize the “center of the world” to the culture of the Polynesian people who first arrived at the island. 2013. Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 In…

  • Gluttony: rise, fall, and resurgence of a capital sin

    F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States     Figure 1. The emblem of gluttony as a woman with protruding belly, carrying wine, and accompanied by a pig. Left: Georg Pencz (1500-1550). Right: Jacques Callot (1592-1635). The notion of gluttony (gula in Latin, meaning throat, gullet) was born among the Desert Fathers. These were hermits who…