Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Kevin r. Loughlin

  • Physicians of the American Revolution

    Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States As the American Revolution began in 1775, the practice of medicine in the colonies was still in its nascent stages. There were only two medical schools in North America: the University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1765 by John Morgan and William Shippen, Jr., and Columbia, founded in 1767 by Samuel…

  • John Hunter, Harvey Cushing, and acromegaly

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Introduction John Hunter and Harvey Cushing were two of the most preeminent surgeons of their eras. John Hunter is considered to be “The Father of British Surgery” and Harvey Cushing the “Father of American Neurosurgery.” They both became interested in acromegaly and in the process went to extreme lengths…

  • Teddy Roosevelt: Did a speech really save his life?

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.” Teddy Roosevelt uttered those words outside the Gilpatrick Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 14, 1912, shortly after he was shot by…

  • The death of Zachary Taylor: The first presidential assassination or a bad bowl of cherries?

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Zachary Taylor was a true Southerner born into a prominent family of plantation owners in Orange County, Virginia, on November 24, 1784, During his childhood his family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. In 1808 he obtained a commission as a first lieutenant in the army. In 1810 he married Margaret…

  • The search for Eisenhower’s adrenal tumor

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States For most Americans, the knowledge of Dwight Eisenhower’s health history is limited to the fact that he had a serious heart attack while president. However, a seemingly casual comment by a non-physician political scientist, Robert E. Gilbert, in his book The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White…

  • A 130-year-old medical cold case: Who was Jack the Ripper?

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, USA As murder followed murder and mutilated bodies were discovered and described in the press, one can imagine the fear that swept the hardscrabble Whitechapel section of London in 1888. Populated with many immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe and Russia, unemployment was rampant and tenements were found on most streets. It…

  • The arrival of the black horse

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, “Come.”  I looked and behold, a black horse, and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living…

  • The Irish famine: catastrophe, diaspora, and redemption

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Tensions between the English and the Irish date back to at least the time of Prince John Lackland, who was made Lord of Ireland by his father, Henry II of England in 1177.1 Anti-Catholic sentiments were pronounced by Oliver Cromwell after his invasion of Ireland and following the massacre…

  • The imponderable ‘what-ifs’: Did the medical issues of three Confederate generals cause the South to lose the war?

    Kevin R. Loughlin  During the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill was credited as saying, “The imponderable ‘what- ifs’ accumulate”. Throughout history, imponderable what ifs have provoked the observer to consider how historical outcomes may have turned out differently. Such it is with the Civil War. It can be reasonably argued that the…