fever - Hektoen International

On orchids and testes

January 31, 2023

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Orchis anthropophora (L.) All. (originally labeled Aceras anthropophorum (L.) R.Br.). From Album des Orchidées d’Europe by Henry Correvon, 1923. Swiss Orchid Foundation at the Herbarium Jany Renz. Botanical Institute, University of Basel, Switzerland. “You like orchids?…Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, their perfume the […]

The decisive influence of malaria on the outcome of Grant’s Vicksburg campaign of 1863

January 19, 2023

Lloyd Klein Eric Wittenberg California, San Francisco, United States Contemporaneous photograph of the dwellings dug into the hills in Vicksburg to escape the bombardment. Public domain. The vital importance of controlling the Mississippi River was apparent to Union strategists from the beginning of the Civil War. The river served as a major supply route, […]

Diagnosis: Neurosyphilis. Treatment: Malaria, iatrogenic

June 27, 2022

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Patient in Kettering hypertherm cabinet undergoing fever therapy. New Orleans, 1937. U.S. Marine Hospital. Works Progress Administration photo. New Orleans Public Library Digital Collections via Wikimedia. Public domain. “The syphilitic man was thinking hard…about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street. […]

Scotland’s Anthrax Island

March 18, 2022

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Cutaneous anthrax lesion on the neck, May 25, 1953. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Image Library. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. “They make a desolation and call it peace.” — Agha Shahid Ali (1949–2001) During World War Two, the British government purchased from its owners the Gruinard […]

Book review: Casanova’s Guide to Medicine

June 17, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover of Casanova’s Guide to Medicine by Lisetta Lovett. The eighteenth-century Italian Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is today best remembered for legendary amorous pursuits that resulted in his name becoming a part of the English language. What has been forgotten, however, is that he was a remarkable and erudite […]

Thomas Sydenham, “The English Hippocrates”

August 13, 2020

JMS Pearce East Yorks, UK Fig 1. Thomas Sydenham. Abraham Blooteling after Mary Beale – portrait of Thomas Sydenham 8-B-47-Med Source Still Fever burns, and all her skill defies Till Sydenham’s wisdom plays a double part, Quells the disease and helps the failing Art. -from a poem on plague by John Locke, 1668 […]

The Schoolhouse Lab

May 15, 2020

Edward McSweegan Kingston, Rhode Island, United States Howard T. Ricketts in Mexico City laboratory. National Library of Medicine “Black measles” was a common name for spotted fever, which regularly killed people in the western United States. Symptoms included a spotty rash on the extremities, fever, chills, headache, and photophobia. No one knew what caused […]

Some subjects are given

August 29, 2019

Michael Salcman Baltimore, Maryland, United States Self-portrait with fiddling Death. Arnold Böcklin. 1872. Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin Some subjects are given to the authors of poems and songs, of mechanical puzzles and lives, given over and over like a spiking fever in an old TB ward or the low level irritation of a cancer […]

Borderline

January 27, 2017

William Marshall Tucson, Arizona, United States Huachuca Mountains Photography by J. G. Park When family and friends from back East ask me about the Arizona/Mexico border, two images come to mind: first, an almost unlimited view of blue sky and distant mountains; second, a sick, frightened teenage boy sitting on an exam table in […]