Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Forceps

  • Battling poverty, injustice, ignorance and fear, and despair

    Tonse N. K. Raju Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States   Figure 1: Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza (1982), by Maurice D. Pearlman, MD (1915-1985), University of Illinois, Class of 1938. Donated in his memory by his daughter, Martha Pearlman. Assemblage approximately 7’ X 11’. This picture was taken when the statue was on…

  • Tooth extraction in art: from the dental key to the forceps

    Vicent Rodilla Alicia López-Castellano Christina Ribes-Vallés Valencia, Spain   Figure 1. A surgeon concealing the Dental key from the patient by Luciano Nezzo (1856-1903). Wellcome Collection. CC Tooth extraction has been practiced for centuries, being carried out first by often itinerant barber-surgeons, and, once the profession became regulated in the late 1800s, by licenced dentists.…

  • Forceps: a brief history

    Sara Buck “He’s a little old man very pale of complexion / Into many things makes a narrow inspection / His head’s very long and his hand’s very small” are the mysterious lines that open an anonymous 17th century English poem.1 Often presumed to refer to Hugh Chamberlen the Elder—the last of the famous Huguenot…