Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Jack E. Riggs

  • J. Marion Sims and the reputation-character distinction

    Jack E. Riggs Matthew S. Smith Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   J. Marion Sims (1813-1883) Sims’ reputation during his life garnished national and international awards and recognition. Image via Wikimedia. Public domain. “Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” — Thomas Paine (likely…

  • Louis Braille: wondrous gift, punishing recipe

    Lauren HillWalnut Cove, North Carolina, United StatesJack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “… as need, the mother of all inventions, taught them …”— Thomas Hobbs, from Leviathan Helen Keller is reputed to have said, “We the blind are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg.”1 The life of Louis Braille (1809–1852), complete…

  • Neurophobia or neuroavoidance: a student or educator issue?

    Kelsey Andrews Jack Riggs  Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein   The human brain – perhaps the most complex and interesting structure in the universe. That statement should make neuroscience a subject of attraction, not avoidance…

  • Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses

    Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs  Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   Harriet Tubman 1822 – 1913 Slave, abolitionist, activist. Suggested to have had visions and dreams as manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy. Via the Library of Congress. Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions,…

  • “Gentlemen! This is no humbug.”

    Summer A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   First Operation Under Ether, by Robert C. Hinckley, Boston Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, 1882-1893 (Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology) Source The words “Gentlemen! This is no humbug” is one of the most famous statements in the history of…

  • Can behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia salvage Semmelweis?

    Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   Ignaz Semmelweis. 1818 – 1865. Age 47 years at death. Via Wikimedia. Remember me for the mind I had; not the mind a disease created.  Few physicians have made a more significant observation than did Ignaz Semmelweis.1 In 1847 he took over two…

  • Sir Victor Horsley’s fatal blind spot

    Faraze A. Niazi Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States     Sir Victor Horsley. Photograph by G.C. Beresford. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. -Robert Oxton Bolton Sir Victor Horsley is generally regarded as the…

  • Certifying clinical competence: principles from the caliphate of al-Muqtadir

    Faraze Niazi Jack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   Dinar of al-Muqtadir. Dated 910/911. Credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. CC BY-SA 2.5 “The devil is always in the details.” “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” –Two Old Wise Sayings   Certifying clinical competence has virtually universal support. After all,…