Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: George Washington

  • The death of James Abram Garfield

    Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States The medical treatment of some US presidents and ex-presidents has been controversial. One example is George Washington, who in 1799 at age sixty-seven suffered from an acute throat ailment that was treated by his physicians with molasses, vinegar, and butter gargles; inhaled vinegar and hot water; and a throat salve…

  • Leeching and François-Joseph-Victor Broussais

    JMS PearceHull, England, UK The practice of bloodletting began with the Egyptians and was succeeded by the Greeks, Romans (including Galen), and healers in India. In medieval times it spread throughout Europe. The “leech craze” was so popular in the nineteenth century that it has been estimated that five to six million leeches per year…

  • Terminal digit preference

    Marshall Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Numbers that end in zero motivate and energize people. Recall Y2K, when the world celebrated on January 1, 2000. The irresistibility of zeros resulted in everyone celebrating on the wrong date: the new millennium started on January 1, 2001, not 2000. The first year of the Julian calendar in…

  • The global journey of variolation

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Humanity has eliminated only one infectious disease—smallpox. Smallpox is a very old disease and efforts to prevent it are almost as old. They included a technique called variolation, also known as inoculation or engrafting, in which individuals were infected with live smallpox virus to produce a milder form of the…

  • Benjamin Rush—Heritage and hope

    C. Frederick KittleChicago, Illinois, United States Excerpted from the The Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, Vol. 34, 1981. Based on a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Alumni Association of Rush Medical College, September 13, 1976. Reprinted from Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s “Magazine,” Winter 1976–77. In his biographies it is stated simply:…

  • Enfreakment in the medicalization of difference

    Camille KrollChicago, Illinois, USA Exalted showman P.T. Barnum was thrilled when he discovered Joice Heth, a severely disabled elderly slave woman. In grotesque detail, he assessed the value of his first sideshow acquisition with relish: I was favorably struck with the appearance of the old woman . . . She might almost as well have…

  • Harvard medical school and the body snatchers

    Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, USA   Figure 1: Woodcut illustration from Fasciculus medicinae (1491) depicting a Lector, Ostensor, and Sector during a dissection Their silhouettes surely would have been seen against the backdrop of a moonlit night in 1796 as they entered the North Burying Ground in Boston. Their hearts were likely filled with…

  • Washington and his spectacles

    Ronald FishmanChicago, Illinois, United States After accepting the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, Washington took most of the Continental Army back up to the Northeast to cover the main British army based around New York City. In the winter of 1782-1783, with the peace negotiations going on in Paris, the encampment was located…

  • Washington’s deadliest enemy

    Kathryn ToneWiesbaden, Germany As Commander of the Continental Army, General George Washington is famously remembered for the surprise 1776 Christmas attack on the Hessian garrison in Trenton, New Jersey. A bold, relatively spontaneous decision, the attack was a last-ditch effort to salvage some sort of victory after some punishing eight months of humiliating defeats from…

  • The last days of George Washington

    When George Washington developed laryngitis and shortness of breath in 1799, his doctors used poultices, enemas, and opened his veins to remove almost half of all his blood in 12 hours. Shown on his deathbed in a painting recently dubbed Death by Malpractice, the first president of the United States was 67 years old at…