Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Inventor

  • The silent struggles of a healer

    Biplab AdhikariLouisville, Kentucky, United States A regular day, it’s time for work,News of a virus, where shadows lurk.No treatment, no vaccine, no known fix,Symptoms vague, it’s all in the mix. Don a mask, the silent plea,Will this new case find its way to me?At work,… Read more

  • Anatomical correlation of the bronze liver of Piacenza with fresh sheep livers

    Belle van RosmalenThomas van GulikAmsterdam, Netherlands The Palazzo Farnese in the town of Piacenza, Italy, houses an archaeological museum called the Musei Civici. Its collection includes an Etruscan model of a sheep’s liver cast in bronze, known as the Piacenza liver.1 (Fig 1) The Etruscans… Read more

  • Emperor Otto II, malaria, and aloe

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Holy Roman Emperor Emperor Otto II (AD 955–983) conquered the Saracens and quelled the invading Magyar menace. However, his ambitious reign abruptly ended, not in battle, but in bed. At the young age of twenty-eight, he departed from this world.… Read more

  • Mary Ann Bickerdyke

    Julius BonelloEmma RyanPeoria, Illinois, United States The colonel had had enough of her disrespect. He would consult his general about this nasty old woman. “I didn’t know we had any nasty old women in our Army,” General Sherman remarked. “Who might she be now?”  “I… Read more

  • Love potions and aphrodisiacs

    The ancient gods lived high atop Mount Olympus. They loved, quarreled, and meddled in human affairs. They had amongst them a goddess of love whom the Romans called Venus and the Greeks Aphrodite. In time, these names followed different trajectories. Venereal became what you get… Read more

  • “Dr. Jim” (Sir Leander Jameson): A hero and villain of the British Empire

    Jonathan DavidsonDurham, North Carolina, United States If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you……If you can meet with triumph and disasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;…Yours is the Earth and everything’s that’s in it,And—which… Read more

  • Carlo Forlanini and his artificial pneumothorax for tuberculosis

    Tuberculosis is an ancient disease that long ago earned the appellation of ‘‘Captain Among these Men of Death.” It remained untreatable until the nineteenth century, when physicians and patients turned to spas or sanitaria offering regimens of rest, diet, and carefully supervised exercise.1 The first… Read more

  • When language fails: Artistic expression in primary progressive aphasia

    Barbara MajdowskaDublin, Ireland “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” claimed philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. But for aphasia patients, this is a problematic and frustrating statement. Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurological disorder characterized by advancing loss of language function. However,… Read more

  • Did Louis XVI have phimosis?

    Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States On May 16, 1770, Louis Auguste, the Dauphin of France and the future Louis XVI, married Marie Antoinette, an Austrian archduchess.1 For the next eight years, the poorly matched couple failed to produce an heir, creating yet another source of… Read more

  • The surgeon

    Joseph RumenappChicago, Illinois, United States He kicked the scrub sink again—only a trickle. He missed the smell of the iodine in the morning, almost as much as he missed the chill of the operating room itself. “Don’t bother, Doc,” the scrub nurse chimed behind him.… Read more

  • The neurology of Emperor Claudius

    JMS PearceHull, England Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC – AD 54) (Fig 1) was a Roman emperor from AD 41 to 54.1 His eventful life was revivified in Robert Graves’s much-admired fictionalized autobiography.2,3 Although one of the most successful Julio-Claudian emperors after Augustus,… Read more

  • Medical lessons from giraffes

    There is a story of a man going to a zoo for the first time and, after staring at a giraffe in astonishment, exclaimed, ‘‘There ain’t no such animal!’’1 Yet African giraffes have long been known to Europeans. They are the tallest living land animals… Read more