Hippocrates - Hektoen International

Book review: The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World

November 1, 2022

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Cover of The Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World, edited by PT Keyser and J Scarborough. Classical antiquity has long been a subject of human fascination. The time period covered in this book ranges from around 1000 BCE to 650 CE. The editors have produced […]

Daumier’s doctors

May 25, 2022

Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Le médecin : Pourquoi, diable! mes malades s’en vont-ils donc tous?”. Caricature by Daumier. National Library of Medicine. No known copyright restrictions. “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” – Reinhold Niebuhr Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) was a “fundamentally discontented” French social critic, painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He produced over […]

Book review: Greco-Roman Medicine and What it Can Teach Us Today

December 16, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover: Greco-Roman medicine and what it can teach us today. The Republic of Rome was founded in the sixth century BC. In the third century BC, the western Roman Empire began to spread outside the borders of Italy. Roman rule came to Britain in AD 43 with the […]

Book review: Medicine in the Middle Ages

November 19, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover of Medicine in the Middle Ages by Juliana Cummings. In the history of Western Europe, the Middle Ages refers to the period between the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century through the beginning of the Renaissance in the 1500s. These thousand years were characterized […]

Psychiatric care at the historical Athens Mental Health Facility

October 15, 2021

Cherron Payne Farmington, Connecticut, United States Athens Asylum for the Insane, Athens State Hospital Administration Building, Circa late 19th Century to early 20th Century. Ohio University Archives. When I was an undergraduate student at Ohio University in Athens, my friends and I would often hike to an intriguing place called the Ridges, overlooking the picturesque […]

Review: The History of the World in 100 pandemics, plagues and epidemics

September 24, 2021

Arpan Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover: The History of the World in 100 pandemics, plagues and epidemics. The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place […]

The discoverers of aspirin

September 3, 2021

JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Proc Royal Soc 1763, Salix Edmund Stone Willow bark. Source. In the short period between the years 1946-1950, three highly effective new drugs became available for clinical use in the newly established National Health Service. They were penicillin, streptomycin, and cortisone. Before this there were few […]

Atypical appendectomies

July 13, 2021

Jayant Radhakrishnan Nathaniel Koo Chicago, Illinois, United States The Silversides Appendectomy was photographed by XO Roy Davenport, at the patient’s head. Thomas Moore is the dark-haired bearded man in the T-shirt. From the USS Flier Project. Appendectomies are routine procedures—until they are not. Three cases of auto-surgery and three other semi-pro appendectomies are worth […]

“Plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners”—A brief history of fermented cabbage as antiscorbutic

June 17, 2021

Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia Germans eating sauerkraut. Hand-colored etching by James Gillray (1756–1815), published 7 May 1803. (© National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG D12809; CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) “. . . those affected have skin as black as ink, ulcers, difficult respiration, rictus of the limbs, teeth falling out and, perhaps most revolting of […]

Book review: The Origins of Modern Science

May 12, 2021

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Cover of The Origins of Modern Science: From Antiquity to the Scientific Revolution by Ofer Gal. Science and medicine have long been intertwined: many advances in the field of medicine would not have been possible without prior knowledge of fundamental science. It is not surprising, therefore, that a […]