Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: George Dunea

  • Johannes Brahms: His life and health

    The musical world remembers Johannes Brahms as one of the leading composers of the Romantic era. His musical output included four symphonies, concertos, a Requiem, folk songs, Lieder, chamber music, and choral works. Born in 1833 in Hamburg, he lived with his family under poor circumstances, began music lessons as a child, and played the…

  • Domenico Scarlatti: The Baroque revolutionary

    The Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) is regarded today as one of the most original and influential figures in the history of keyboard music. Though not as famous in his own time as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel—all born in the same year!—his innovations and the style of his 550 keyboard sonatas greatly…

  • Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)

    In the spring of 1860, a seventeen-year-old student Norwegian student at the prestigious Leipzig Conservatory developed a severe case of pleurisy. He ultimately survived a disease which killed most patients in the pre-antibiotic era, but its consequences were permanent and devastating. A destroyed left lung combined with a visible thoracic spine deformity and permanent respiratory…

  • Tchaikovsky: His medical life and his death

    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) composed wonderful symphonies, operas, and ballets, but suffered greatly during his life from an array of medical and psychological issues. His letters and diaries reveal a lifelong struggle with emotional problems that modern medicine would likely classify as depressive or bipolar disorder. He went through frequent periods of melancholy, social withdrawal,…

  • The liver in culture and literature

    The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. Dark and heavy with blood, it was often viewed as the seat of the soul, the source of passion, a tool to predict the future, or a symbol of suffering and resilience. In Greek mythology, Prometheus is bound to a rock for stealing fire from…

  • Pigeons and doves

    The deeper you get into pigeons, the more complicated they get. Are pigeons the same as doves? What are squab and what are quail? Which may you eat, which may you feed, and which may you shoot? It seems to depend on where you live. If pigeons spread disease, why are so many allowed in…

  • David Paton, the flying eye surgeon

    Dr. David Paton, who died April 3, 2025 at age 93, is remembered for his efforts to make modern eye care and technology available worldwide. Born in Baltimore on August 16, 1930, he spent much of his childhood in New York City, where his father was a prominent ophthalmologist and founder of the world’s first…

  • Akshamsaddin from a medical point of view                

    The Ottoman scholar Akshamsaddin (Muhammad Shams al-Din bin Hamzah, 1389–1459) is remembered more often as the mentor and advisor to Sultan Mehmed II rather than as a physician who contributed remarkably to the medical knowledge of his time. Born in Damascus, he acquired in his youth a significant knowledge of medicine and pharmacology, derived from…

  • Virginia Woolf and the Common Reader

    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, remains well worth reading. Lovers of English literature admire her wonderful style, and advocates of women’s rights appreciate the sentiments she expressed in her essay “A Room of One’s Own”. During most of her life she was afflicted by intense mood swings…

  • The history of typhus

    Typhus exanthematicus is an old disease long confused with typhoid fever. Some historians believe that it caused the Plague of Athens as described by Thucydides, and that it was introduced into Europe by the Spanish soldiers returning from the Americas in the sixteenth century. It likely caused the severe epidemic occurring during the confrontations between…