Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Fountain of Youth

  • Rapamycin: The “fountain of youth” from Easter Island?

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “We know more about the movement of the celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.”—Leonardo DaVinci In November 1964, the Canadian naval vessel HMCS Cape Scott left Halifax, Nova Scotia, to make a medical evaluation of Easter Island. The expedition was led by surgeon Stanley Skoryna and medical microbiologist Georges Nógrády,1,2 and…

  • Forever young: The history and promise of young blood therapeutics

    Kelly ChenBirmingham, Alabama, United States Two mice waddle in unison. They eat together, drink together, and nest together. Their closeness is no act of nature—for on closer inspection a delicate line of sutures is seen connecting them from forelimb to hindlimb. They are linked by parabiosis, the surgical joining of two organisms. Parabiosis was first…

  • The Fountain of Youth

    But O that I were young againAnd held her in my arms.— Yeats Since time immemorial, people in most countries of the world have looked for remedies to repair the ravages of time and make them young again. This has given rise to many tales about miraculous springs of water they could drink or bathe…