Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Jesus Christ

  • The Madonna of Impruneta: Icons and processions

    The Madonna of Impruneta is an icon showing the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus. Its origins can be traced to the year 1060, when some woodcutters found it in the woods of Tuscany and brought it to the church at Impruneta. According to an alternative version, a man named Biagio coming back from Rome…

  • Professionalism in crisis: Dr. Winkel and The Third Man

    Paul DakinLondon, United Kingdom Times of crisis may highlight the best and worst characteristics of people. Many of us yearn to be heroes and yet what is revealed under pressure may fall short of our ideal. Doctors share this human frailty. Is medical training and professionalism enough to overcome personal weakness, allowing our behavior to…

  • Washing our hands

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Ever since Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, washed his hands before condemning Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion, this simple act of personal sanitation has been used as the figurative icon of a disclaimer, the denial of responsibility. Today, in the climate of the current COVID-19 pandemic, handwashing is not…

  • Engage the emotions

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Captivated by the paintings of Caravaggio, I search for them wherever I travel. But no encounter has been as intense and personal as The Taking of Christ in the Beit wing of the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin. The Taking of Christ depicts the moment of Jesus’s betrayal by…

  • Bad blood

    Andrea DejeanToulouse, France The French Blood Agency (l’Établissement français du sang; EFS) organizes frequent blood collection campaigns in the small city where I live in southwestern France. These campaigns are often planned to take place before the start of school vacations or just before the end-of-the-year holiday season when many French families take to the…

  • Whose blood is it anyway?

    Felicity SelfPacific North West I am ashamed. I am ashamed because I have only given blood once in my entire adult life. I am forty-eight years old and eligible to donate blood since I was seventeen, which means I have had thirty-one years in which I could have given blood. And I know the importance:…

  • The artistic depiction of Christ’s crucifixion: history meets biomechanics

    Mark RansomJohnson City, Tennessee, United States The artistic depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, particularly from the first known images through the seventeenth century, are inconsistent in their portrayal of His cross and body position. There is little doubt that some of the evolution in the scene is in keeping with the artists’ deliberate…