Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: heart failure

  • Cecil Rhodes: The man with a hole in his heart

    There must be few people in the world who can locate with confidence Northern or Southern Rhodesia on a map of Africa. Yet these countries still exist, only the names have changed. Nor would the man who founded them win a contemporary popularity contest. In fact, his statue at the University of Cape Town was…

  • The thickening of blood

    Nod GhoshChristchurch, New Zealand It begins when you are a child, in the pre-antibiotic dawn of an Indian summer, one of six siblings, five of whom will eventually die of broken heart valves or diabetes. But let us say for now, you are a child, a child who loves to dance, to play in the…

  • The heart in Star Trek

    Victor GrechTal-Qroqq Star Trek (ST) is a fictional utopian future history depicting how humanity might develop up to the 24th century. The series and movies comprise a metanarrative that encompasses 735 hours of viewing time, and thereby provides a fertile ground for analysis of various areas of critical study. In several ST episodes, the heart…

  • Sir Thomas Lewis: The promise of electrocardiography

    In republishing an account of clinical electrocardiography, I do so from conviction that this method of examination is essential to the modern study of heart disease. When some twenty-seven years ago I began to study disorders of the heart with the aid of the “string galvanometer” the method was in its early infancy and unknown…

  • Auscultation

    Daly WalkerBoca Grande, Florida, United States In the hospital’s x-ray department, Dad and I entered a small room with a wall of lighted boxes. A man with dyed reddish hair sat, sipping at a mug of coffee and reading a magazine called The American Spectator. “Harry,” Dad said. “Meet my son, Bud. Bud, this is…

  • The First Cut

    Lisa FriedmanCleveland, Ohio, United States Poet’s statement The poem is about my first experience with cadavers in the anatomy lab at medical school. The first cut My first patient was an 88-year-old female“Congestive Heart Failure” the chart said.Not in acute distressNeither alert nor oriented x 3. I was told I had consent to look.She lay…