Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hektoen International

  • The Emberá of Panama

    L. J. Sandlow George Dunea Chicago, 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,…

  • Budapest: medicine and paprika

    L. J. Sandlow George Dunea Chicago, 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…

  • The Yellow Wallpaper: The flawed prescription

    Mahek Khwaja  Karachi, Pakistan Yellow Wallpaper Art: A Bowl with “The House”~ Tower, the Yellow Room. By Julie Jordan Scott on Flickr. CC BY 2.0.  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,…

  • Asclepius at Epidaurus

    L. J. Sandlow George Dunea Chicago, 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…

  • Learning about children

    Canon Brodar Miami, Florida, United States   The Infant Hercules, ca. 1785–89. Sir Joshua Reynolds, British. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Surdna Fund. 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…

  • 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…

  • Snapped by Snapchat: social media and adolescents

    Ganga Prasanth Austin, Texas, United States   Photo by Maxim Ilyahov on Unsplash  When was the last time you checked in with social media? An hour ago? Thirty minutes? Maybe ten? Social media plays a large role in modern society. Humans have an innate drive to belong to groups and take part in social interactions; and a sense…

  • The literary breakdown in Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch

    Carol-Ann Farkas Boston, Massachusetts, United States   The Goldfinch By Carel Fabritius. 1654. Mauritshuis. Public Domain. Wikimedia. 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…

  • 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.…