Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: immortality

  • A moment of philosophy

    Nishitha BujalaHyderabad, Telangana, India I seem to be in a constant state of anxiety these days. With my one-year plans and goals seemingly disrupted by the pandemic, my medical licensing exams postponed, my ability to focus shrunk to the size of a peanut, my interest to study equaling that of a bored cat, I cannot…

  • Gulliver at Luggnagg — Learning about the immortal struldbrugs (abridged)

    The Luggnaggians are a polite and generous people . . . they show themselves courteous to strangers. One day . . . I was asked by a person of quality, “whether I had seen any of their struldbrugs, or immortals?” . . . He told me “that sometimes, though very rarely, a child happened to…

  • Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm: An inseparable balance?

    John Graham-PoleClydesdale, NS, Canada Life blood: Humor and health In 1960, I entered St. Bartholomew’s Medical School on a full classics scholarship. I was a devotee of Hippocrates, with high hopes of embarking on a path of uniting medical science with the healing arts. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” was…

  • Gilgamesh and medicine’s quest to conquer death

    Anika KhanKarachi, Pakistan “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I go?A thief has taken hold of my [flesh!]For there in my bed-chamber Death does abide,and wherever [I] turn, there too will be Death.”—From The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Standard Version, Tablet XI1 “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I…

  • Unlocking the secrets of longevity: the potential of Cannonau

    Samuele CannasPisa, Italy “O gentlemen, the time of life is short! / To spend that shortness basely were too long, / If life did ride upon a dial’s point, / Still ending at the arrival of an hour.”– William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, Act V, Scene 2 Humans have always pursued the search for…

  • Tithonus and Eos

    Emilio MordiniParis, France The Pio Monte della Misericordia, a building in the historic center of Naples, is today a museum that exhibits important paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Seven Works of Mercy and many Neapolitan Caravaggists. Here the visitor may come across a large painting of a gorgeous, blonde woman rising from pink and blue…