Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: George Christopher

  • Arrowsmith at 100 years

    George ChristopherMichigan, United States Sinclair Lewis’ novel Arrowsmith (1925) is a biography of the fictional physician Martin Arrowsmith that chronicles his life from childhood through the transitions of his medical career. The novel spans the protagonist’s years in medical school and subsequent roles as a hospital house officer, clinician in solo practice, public health official,…

  • Vernian foresight: Anti-infective cryotherapy from science fiction to standard of care

    George ChristopherMichigan, United States The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras (1866) is a fictional account of an Arctic expedition set in 1860–1861 written by Jules Verne, the master of nineteenth-century science fiction. In one of the novel’s many dramatic episodes, the crew’s physician, Dr. Clawbonny, cured Bell, the ship’s carpenter, of diphtheria by applying…

  • Scales fell from his eyes

    George ChristopherMichigan, United States A pivotal moment in the history of Christianity was the conversion of St. Paul while en route to Damascus. “On his journey…a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him…he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? …when he opened…

  • Ode to baroque and other musical genres

    George ChristopherAda, Michigan, United States Imagine a musical style that is emotionally evocative yet highly organized, thereby conferring structure to emotion; that gives artistic expression of the fusion of emotion and reason; that mimics biology at cellular through ecological levels through its organized complexity; that brings unity from the diversity of multiple simultaneous melodic lines;…