Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: intelligence

  • Discovering genius: The neurobiological substrate of intelligence

    Helena Ljulj Zagreb, Croatia   Depiction of physiognomy. Profiled Series by Ken Gonzales-Day, 2009. Getty Museum. Image courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. Left: Bust of an African Woman by Henry Weeks, 1859. Right: Bust of Mm. Adélaïde Julie Mirleau de Newville, née Garnier d’Isle by Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, 1750s. “It is…

  • Can headless martyrs really walk? The belief in cephalophores in the Middle Ages

    Andrew Wodrich Washington, DC   Saint Denis of Paris holding his severed head. Mid-15th century depiction from an illuminated prayer book (Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 5, fol. 35v, 84.ML.723.35v). The halos surrounding his decapitated head as well as the stump of his neck suggest that the soul and saintliness of St. Denis remain in…

  • Is a bigger brain better?

    Matimba Molly ChilalaNdola, Zambia Does intelligence depend on the size and dimensions of the brain? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, intelligence can be defined as the ability to understand or deal with novel or trying situations. It is also described as a mental quality that consists of the ability to learn from experience, adapt to…

  • Book review: How the Mind Changed: A Human History of Our Evolving Brain

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of How the Mind Changed: A Human History of Our Evolving Brain by Joseph Jebelli. The human brain has long been a source of wonder and a fascinating subject for study. Philosophers, scientists, biologists, psychologists, anthropologists, and medical scholars have spent lifetimes studying the brain and how…

  • Paul Pierre Broca

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Paul Pierre Broca. US National Library of Medicine. At the turn of the nineteenth century, knowledge of how the brain worked was largely conjectural. Intelligence, memory, language, and motor and sensory functions had not been localized. The physiologist Flourens, promoting the notion of “cerebral equipotentiality,” concluded,…

  • Was Moses an alchemist?

    S.E.S. Medina Benbrook, Texas, United States   Worshiping the golden calf, as in Exodus 32:1-35. Illustration from a Bible card published 1901 by the Providence Lithograph Company. Via Wikimedia. “And he took the (golden) calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the…

  • Origin of the mind

    Bhargavi Bhattacharyya Kolkata, India   Artificial Intelligence. Photo by Gerd Altman. From Pixabay. How are the mind and brain related? The brain is a ball of nerve cells, or neurons. The mind, the functional unit of the brain, includes imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgment, language, memory, and emotions. How do these basic units, neurons, translate…

  • Epilepsy: From the early civilizations to modern days

    MAS Ahmed Ridhwan Bin Hassan London, United Kingdom   Early civilizations Dr. Guertin’s nerve syrup, c. 1910 Since ancient times epileptic seizures have been subject to paranormal and superstitious beliefs, ranging from demonic causes to divine intervention. Some of the earliest observations were made by the Babylonians, who among their stone slabs on medical diagnostics…