Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hawaii

  • Recognition at last

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” — William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream     The adage “out of sight, out of mind” appears to have been coined for microbes. We only think about them when they cause havoc, as in the current pandemic. Lately the situation seems to be…

  • Jack London’s cloudy crystal ball

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States The COVID-19 pandemic has given quarantined readers new opportunities to discover the literature of plagues and epidemics. Many people—in order to give context to the present pandemic—have turned to books like Albert Camus’ classic novel The Plague, Daniel DeFoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Steven King’s The Stand,…

  • The scourge, the scientist, and the swindle

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live…

  • Plagues and prejudice

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, missionaries, and deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles; the overthrow of…

  • Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska: Immigrant, physician, teacher

    Cynthia KramerWaianae, Hawaii, United States Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska was a female physician and teacher, at a time when women were not taken seriously in the field of medicine by their male counterparts. She served as head midwife at the Royal Charite Hospital in Berlin, Germany, then moved to the United States and received a doctor…