Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: James L. Franklin

  • Mankind and the camel: An old romance

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States “The camel is a horse designed by a committee.” This quotation is attributed to Sir Alec Issgonis (1906–1988), a British car designer who worked for the Morris Minor Company and went on to design the Austin Mini. He was knighted in 1969 for the success of his design.…

  • Ben Hecht and the “Miracle of the Fifteen Murderers”

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The January 16, 1943 issue of Collier’s Weekly featured a short story by the famous and multifaceted author Ben Hecht titled “Miracle of the Fifteen Murderers,” with the subtitle “The X Club hosts a post-mortem.” The publisher framed the text with a black-and-white illustration of a group of masked…

  • Marmite: Its place in medical history, Lucy Wills, and the discovery of folic acid

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States On a recent visit to Botswana in southern Africa, the author was introduced to a food spread known as Marmite.* Apparently very popular in Africa, a distinctive jar of this condiment was present on the table at every meal. Our South African Apex Expedition guide, Liam Rainier, a consummate…

  • Béla Bartók (1881-1945): The years in America, triumph over tragedy

    James L. FranklinGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States Black clouds of war were hanging over the world when Béla Bartók and his wife Ditta Pásztory (1903-1982) disembarked in New York Harbor on October 30, 1940. For the remainder of his life, Bartók would learn, as had Dante, “. . . how salt the taste of another…

  • Mozart and Salieri: From Pushkin to Shaffer

    James L. Franklin1Chicago, Illinois, United States La CalunniaLa calunnia è un venticello,Un’auretta assai gentileChe insensibile, sottile,Leggermente, dolcemente,Incomincia a sussurarPiano, piano, terra, terraSottovoce, sibilando,Va scorrendo, va ronzandoS’introduce destramenteE le teste ed I Cervelli . . . Calumny is a little breezeA gentile zephyrWhich insensibly, subtly,Lightly and sweetly,Commences to whisper,Softly, softly here and there.Sottovoce, sibilantIt goes gliding,…

  • The three contraries of Benjamin Franklin: “The gout, the stone and not yet master of all my passions”

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States On May 23, 1785, Benjamin Franklin wrote from Passy on the outskirts of Paris to George Whatley that “at Fourscore the three contraries that have befallen me, being subject to the Gout and the Stone, and not yet Master of all my passions.”1 It is a long letter and…

  • In praise of swimming: From Benjamin Franklin to Oliver Sacks

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was not a physician, but many thought he was so-trained and referred to him as “Doctor” Franklin. After accepting an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in 1759, awarded for his experiments in electricity, people began referring to him as “Doctor,” a title he…

  • From woodpeckers to Auenbrugger

    James Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States In learning the art of physical diagnosis, every medical student is taught the technique and application of percussion. Percussion involves placing the palm and fingers of one hand on the patient and using the tip of the third finger of the other hand as a hammer, striking the distal interphalangeal…

  • Robert Schumann’s hand injury

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States The death of the American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928–2020)1 whose brilliant career as a piano soloist was upended in his mid-thirties by the development of a crippling movement disorder affecting his right hand, brings to mind the composer Robert Schumann whose youthful ambition to become a piano virtuoso was…

  • The Bengal tiger: Panthera tigris tigris

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Indian subcontinent for millennia provided the ideal “jungle” habitat for the tiger. When the first Europeans arrived in India the animal was ubiquitous. At the close of the nineteenth century, when Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, 100,000 tigers were thought to roam the subcontinent. By 1971, a critical…