Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Genius

  • Discovering genius: The neurobiological substrate of intelligence

    Helena LjuljZagreb, Croatia “It is by the shape and size of the forehead that we are to judge of the extent of a man’s understanding… When the frontal vein appears distinctly in the midst of a forehead, open, uniform, and regularly arched, it announces extraordinary talent.”1 According to the eighteenth century physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater,…

  • What makes a polymath, a genius, or a man who knows everything?

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The question posed in this title is of course imponderable and ridiculous, but nevertheless fascinating. Until the Enlightenment (c. 1750–1800), an intellectual “Renaissance man” could have read most of the important books printed. He might well have known most of the medical, scientific, and mathematical facts of the day, and…

  • Review of Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The lives of people who seem to be endowed with extraordinary abilities have long been a source of fascination. The famous Italian physician, researcher, and founder of the science of criminology, Cesare Lombroso, professed this interest in his 1889 book The Man of Genius, stating that genius was a form…