Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: hair loss

  • Diagnosis: Neurosyphilis. Treatment: Malaria, iatrogenic

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The syphilitic man was thinking hard…about how to get his legs to step off the curb and carry him across Washington Street. Here was his problem: His brains, where the instructions to his legs originated, were being eaten alive by corkscrews.”– Kurt Vonnegut, The Breakfast of Champions Julius Wagner-Jauregg, M.D. (1857–1940) graduated…

  • “Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease”

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Overconfidence is an undesirable quality. It does not enhance a physician’s approach to learning, nor to changing when change is needed. How a doctor diagnoses or treats a condition today may cause future generations of physicians to wonder, “What were they thinking? Did they not think about potential long-term effects?” Such future…

  • Tracing wisps of hair

    Miriam RosenPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen. For the next nine years, she lived her life with elegance and seemed to do it with ease. She continued her psychiatry practice, only gradually reducing the number of patients she saw. She read the New York Times cover to…