Tag: Hektoen International
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The Emberá of Panama
L.J. SandlowGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The Emberá are an indigenous people who live near the Panama-Columbia border. There are about 33,000 living in Darién, Panama, and 50,000 in Colombia. Until 1960 most lived in extended family settlements along the rivers. Since the 60s many have moved together into small villages, still along the river.…
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Budapest: Medicine and paprika
L.J. SandlowGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The Magyars, ancestors of modern Hungarians, came from the region of the Ural Mountains and invaded Europe around AD 800. Crossing the Carpathian Mountains, they conquered the Pannonian plain and established a large and important medieval kingdom. In 1526 they were defeated at the decisive battle of Mohacs, their…
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The Yellow Wallpaper: The flawed prescription
Mahek Khwaja Karachi, Pakistan Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story The Yellow Wallpaper in nineteenth-century America when gendered norms prevailed in society at large and notably in medicine. In a previous article, “Charlotte Perkins Gilman, apostle of women’s liberation,” (2019) published in Hektoen International, George Dunea speaks at length on how Perkins’ writings are peppered…
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Asclepius at Epidaurus
L.J. SandlowGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States An Athenian seeking a cure for his afflictions in the fourth century BC had the option of visiting several competing sanctuaries, at Delphi, Olympia, or Epidaurus. To reach Epidaurus, the Athenian would bypass Megara and Corinth, then turn south and find himself at the shrine of Asclepius, the son…
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Learning about children
Canon BrodarMiami, Florida, United States I began my first clinical rotation excited but fearful. Medical students are taught about pediatric pathology and developmental milestones, but nothing about working with children and their families. I had heard the constant refrain that “children are not just little adults” but as I started preparing for pediatrics, I had…
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Potts and Pott
John RaffenspergerFort Meyer, Florida, United States Willis Potts and Percival Pott were both highly skilled surgeons, prolific authors, and contributed to the surgical care of children. Percival Pott (1714–1788) Percival Pott, at age fifteen, apprenticed to Edward Nourse, a surgeon at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He paid 210 pounds for his seven-year apprenticeship. Pott attended lectures…
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The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch
Carol-Ann FarkasBoston, Massachusetts, United States I. Diagnostically speaking, the “nervous” or “mental” breakdown is not a thing. The term has never been formally used in psychology, which has long preferred specific, definable categorizations of symptoms and conditions: stress, fatigue, anxiety, depression, trauma.1 And yet the phenomenon persists in popular usage.1,2 Why? We like the “breakdown”…
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Two great Scots: John and William Hunter
B. Herold GriffithChicago, Illinois, United States Excerpted from a presentation at the meeting of the Society of Medical History of Chicago October 3, 2006 Of the many surgeons who have had ties to Glasgow over the past 500 years or so, the most famous were the Hunter brothers, and a century later, Sir Joseph Lister.…
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Richard Mead
Arpan K BanerjeeSolihull, UK Richard Mead was born on 11 August 1673, the eleventh child of Matthew Mead, a preacher and somewhat controversial character of his time.1 Matthew Mead was a scholar and Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, although he resigned from the latter post before being expelled by the authorities for the ill will…