Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Is Mary Seacole the new mother of nursing?

  • The Red Sea: Delights and dangers

    The Red Sea, wedged between Africa and Arabia, stretches from the Suez Canal to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean, it is believed to have been formed by the separation of the African and Asian tectonic plates. Its extreme climate… Read more

  • Something fishy about vegetarians, carnivores, and longevity

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel “I did not become a vegetarian for my own health. I did it for the health of the chickens.”—IB Singer, Nobel Laureate in Literature There is an association between being a vegetarian and voting on the left side of politics. Various… Read more

  • “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” — The most famous four words in exploration history

    On the morning of November 10, 1871, a disheveled group of men emerged from near Lake Tanganyika after an eight-month expedition through the jungle, led by an American journalist, Henry Morton Stanley. As they came across a thin, gray-bearded Scotsman, Stanley removed his hat, extended… Read more

  • Ethiopia: Where once the Lion of Judah ruled

    Ethiopia, one of the oldest continuously inhabited nations on earth, remained largely independent during the colonial era of Africa. Its earliest known civilization was the Kingdom of D’mt, which emerged around the eighth century BCE. It was later followed by the powerful Kingdom of Aksum,… Read more

  • Charles Norris and the evolution of forensic medicine

    Zo Overton-HennessyNoel BrownleeBlacksburg, Virginia, United States “His work makes dead men tell more tales than live ones ever could.”1 These words, though hyperbolic on the surface, understate the influence Dr. Charles Norris had on forensic medicine. His rigorous attention to detail set the innocent free,… Read more

  • Pulse to poetry

    Xavier NesbitTasmania, Australia I was nineteen when I held a human heart for the first time. It was the second semester of medical school, and we had just begun our first class on dissection. The lecturer placed it into my double-gloved hands without ceremony, as… Read more

  • Divergent experiences of German and Jewish mothers in the Third Reich

    Josephine SalesWaco, Texas, United States In World War II Germany, National Socialist ideology transformed the private experience of motherhood into a political site where biology was weaponized to serve the state’s eugenic objectives. Under this regime, the “Aryan” woman’s body was declared property of the… Read more

  • Book review: New Life. New Beginnings: Compelling Stories by Organ Recipients, Donors, and Doctors

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK In 1902, French surgeon Alexis Carrel described a technique for suturing blood vessels. In the 1930s, he developed a perfusion pump that laid the foundations for organ transplantation. In the 1950s, pioneering kidney transplants were carried out by Joseph Murray in… Read more

  • Lamps in medicine

    Long before modern hospitals existed, lamps played an essential role in patient care, and medical progress often depended on improvements in illumination. In Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, oil lamps were commonly used to provide light during examinations and treatments. These lamps burned olive oil… Read more

  • The elusive fountain of youth

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Important and affluent people have always sought immortality, or at least an inordinately long life, and medical systems have tried to deliver. Āyŭrvēdic, Egyptian, Chinese, Persian, and Greco-Arabic (Ǖnāni) medical systems prescribe diet, exercise, rest, mental peace, and herbs for… Read more

  • Birds and wellbeing

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel A robin redbreast in a cagePuts all Heaven in a rage.A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeonsShudders Hell thro’ all its region—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” Years ago, as a hemato-oncology registrar, we had a patient with extensive lymphoma who… Read more

  • Galla Placida and the city of Ravenna

    A short train ride from Bologna brings visitors to the historic town of Ravenna. A walk from the station past modest hotels leads to a shady park and a lively main street. At the far end, tourists find the sights they likely came for: the… Read more