Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hektorama

  • Notes from writing a character with a bleeding disorder

    Nicole HebdonBuffalo, New York, United States I have read two books that feature characters with bleeding disorders. The first was a used paperback with a neon green and blue cover, like bowling alley carpet under a black light. I do not remember the title or the author’s name or much of the plot, but I…

  • Blood and war: Preserving plasma and humanity

    Navanjana SiriwardaneCharlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada Amidst the fighting and chaotic nature of World War II, the need for proper blood banking was greater than ever. Millions of soldiers were dying without proper blood transfusions, and the cost of saving many lives was in the hands of the Red Cross. Dr. Charles Richard Drew was…

  • The sight of blood

    Joanne JacobsonNew York, New York, United States None of us live to adulthood without seeing our own blood—growing up, I witnessed my blood flow free of my body too many times to count. The bleeding knee picked clean of leaves and gravel after my father sent me spinning down the driveway on my birthday bike;…

  • Theme

    AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY Published in February, 2020 H E K T O R A M A   .     THE BLACK BARBERSHOP AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION       Barbershop health-prevention outreach has some inherent limitations. Barbers enjoy positions of respect and trust in the black community,7,11,15 but men can still be uncomfortable…

  • Did Macbeth have syphilis?

    Eleanor J. Molloy Dublin, Ireland   Gerard De Lairesse suffered from congenital syphilis. Image: Portrait of Gerard de Lairesse. Rembrandt van Rijn. 1665–67. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain. Introduction Syphilis was endemic in Elizabethan England and it was estimated that nearly 20% of the population of London were infected.1 The signs and symptoms…

  • Of luxuriant manes and in praise of baldness

    Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States The feverish imagination of poets has ever eulogized the beauty of feminine hair. The beloved’s hair has been represented as golden threads, sunrays, fragrant flowers, or astrakhan fleece (wool famous for its tight, shiny loops). Richard Lovelace spoke of it as “sunlight wound up in ribbands.”1 To Charles Baudelaire, his…

  • The X Club

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig. 1 TH Huxley Wikipedia: This work is in the public domain Charles Babbage, who conceived the first automatic digital computer, published in 1830 Reflections on the Decline of Science in England. This stimulated the formation of several new groups that aimed to further scientific progress and exchange…

  • The Rh factor: An intertwined history

    Paula CarterChicago, Illinois In 1924, Lucy Reyburn gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Darlene. Lucy lived in Iowa and the birth was an embarrassment. She had become pregnant and hurriedly married a man who left before the baby was born. It was for the best; the man had been unkind. But…

  • African American medical pioneers

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   The road for African Americans in the medical professions has not been easy. Enslaved Africans received no education.1 During the first half of the nineteenth-century medical schools in the North would admit only a very small number of black students. Even after the Civil War, African Americans continued…

  • Avant garde research on a blood substitute at the Hektoen Institute of Medical Research

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States   From Left to Right: Gerald S Moss MD, Richard Brinkman MD, Lakshman Sehgal PhD, Robert Forest DVM. June 1975, photograph of the team with the first baboon resuscitated with stroma free hemoglobin after being bled down to a hemoglobin concentration of zero. Photo taken by the author. The…