Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Karl Popper

  • Anne McLaren, transfusion, transplantation, and the nature of blood

    Matthew HolmesCambridge, UK Anne McLaren, Oxford-trained zoologist and first female Officer of the Royal Society, once claimed that “History may be circular, but the history of science is helical: it repeats itself, but each time at a deeper level.”1 To see the helical nature of the history of science in action, we need look no…

  • The incidental reach of pattern in Medicine and Art

    Eric WillUnited Kingdom “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,Or what’s a(n artist’s) Heaven for? . . .”— After Robert Browning’s “Andrea del Sarto,” 1855 1,2 (author’s italics) The bedside is a comfortable thinking space for clinicians. On occasion, just there, they bring to mind the clinical patterns that point to a differential…