Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Louis XVI

  • Did Louis XVI have phimosis?

    Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States On May 16, 1770, Louis Auguste, the Dauphin of France and the future Louis XVI, married Marie Antoinette, an Austrian archduchess.1 For the next eight years, the poorly matched couple failed to produce an heir, creating yet another source of political instability in France. It was not until December 19,…

  • Jean-Paul Marat, physician and revolutionary

    JMS PearceHull, England The murder of the notorious Jean-Paul Marat in his bath in July 1793 by Charlotte Corday is a tale where revolution, art, and medicine each played a part. When the commoners stormed the Bastille royal prison in Paris on July 14, 1789, to defy the Ancien Régime, they struck a blow for…

  • 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…