Tag: Hektorama
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A lesson in physiology
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece The contours are quite familiar, both to the eye and the touch. My hand strokes its counterpart, its twin sibling: they have been working together ever since I first saw the light of the day in this world. They have washed, clasped, clapped each other, tugged and pulled and strained together. They…
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Howard Kelly’s avant-garde autopsy method
Julius BonelloGeorge TsourdinisPeoria, Illinois, United States Once dubbed the “Prince of Gynecology,” Dr. Howard A. Kelly was one of the most prominent surgeons in the United States in the early twentieth century.1 Through the blessing of Sir William Osler, Kelly had risen to the rank of Head of Gynecology at Johns Hopkins Medical School at…
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Bloody women
M.K.K. Hague-YearlMontréal, Québec, Canada Sitting with little fanfare inside a twentieth-century red hardcover binding is a single leaf whose bibliographic record contains brackets of uncertainty: “[Calendar for Austria, 1496.] [Kaspar Hochfeder, Nürnberg? 1495.]” The catalogue offers only a basic description: “The woodcut occupying the whole lower portion depicts a zodiac man, two bloodletting scenes, a…
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Blood and bone
Sue StevensonMelbourne, Australia The compression socks assist with my low blood volume but they look terrible with my summer dress. Secondhand, $12 on eBay, a 1940s cut with flowers and cap sleeves. The compression socks remind me of ancient old ladies and while I am a year shy of half a century, I am still…
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Defining donation
Ahmad ShakeriHowsikan KugathasanToronto, Canada Money was tight in college for my roommate and me. I had a book buying habit and he frequented restaurants. Both of us were tutors but our financial strategies and our part time jobs were not the only things that united us. There was blood. Every few months, the American Red…
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A case of toxic blood
Shruthi DeivasigamaniPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a blustery winter day, a molecule of water condenses around a particle of dust in the air. The structure grows in size as it falls closer to earth, and before it hits the ground outside, it has crystallized into a perfect, six-sided snowflake. Miles away, a thirty-one-year-old woman is…
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Yellow blood: Learn from yesterday
Meguna NakaiNagoya, Japan In 2020 Japan will host the second Tokyo Olympics. When the first Olympics were televised in 1964, people were surprised to find that Japan had developed so quickly even though only nineteen years had passed after World War II. Yet there remained much to be done. One urgent need was to improve…
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The mysterious Red Cross boy
Emeka Chibuikem V.Enugu State, Nigeria Who is this Red Cross Boy? This is the question to which I could find no answer until this day. I am Alex, from the Igbo tribe in the South-East of Nigeria, and I was born out of wedlock in 1991 to a single mother who died in 1998, while…
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Destination assured—The power of the cross
Kelsey Wollin DunnOregon, Wisconsin, United States The most powerful and mysterious statement ever made about blood was first uttered about two thousand years ago by Jesus of Nazareth. In the present day, it continues to be recited regularly throughout the world by Christian leaders to more than two billion followers.1, 2 Holy Communion is an…