Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Head injury

  • Some Dickensian diagnoses

    JMS PearceHull, England What a gain it would have been to physic if one so keen to observe and facile to describe had devoted his powers to the medical art.– British Medical Journal obituary, 1870 A huge biographical literature relates the turbulent life of Charles Dickens (1812–1870) (Fig 1) from its humble, poverty-ridden beginnings to…

  • Derek Ernest Denny-Brown

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Figure 1: Image in the public domain. Credit: The National Library of Medicine. Source Amongst the titans of medicine, it is not easy to pick out those whose footprints will not fade with passing time. Derek Denny-Brown (Fig 1) was one. He was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. After his…

  • Winter race against time

    Christopher CameronKelso, Scotland, United Kingdom The phone rang in my surgery as I was embarking on an insurance medical examination a few days before Christmas. The town outside was strangely quiet, with few vehicles moving owing to a heavy snowfall earlier in the evening. Knowing my receptionist would only have put a call through during…