Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: malaise

  • A poet for a patient: A tenth century poem by al Mutanabbi

    Sama AlreddawiBarry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States “The Night Visitor”1 Sick of body, unable to rise up…Vehemently intoxicated without wine …And it is as though she who visits me were filled with modesty…For she does not pay her visits save under cover of darkness …I freely offered her my linen and my pillows…But she refused them,…

  • Scotland’s Anthrax Island

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “They make a desolation and call it peace.”— Agha Shahid Ali (1949–2001) During World War Two, the British government purchased from its owners the Gruinard Island, a one by two km island off the Scottish coast. The one inhabitant was evicted, and the island became the site of secret tests to weaponize…

  • Did Macbeth have syphilis?

    Eleanor J. Molloy Dublin, Ireland Introduction Syphilis was endemic in Elizabethan England and it was estimated that nearly 20% of the population of London were infected.1 The signs and symptoms were commonly known to the average person and would be potentially recognizable to the audience in Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare mentions syphilis more times than any…

  • Abandon

    Chris BirdLondon, Great Britain Patient details have been changed to protect patient confidentiality. Once a month, the heads of service at Lulimba Hospital, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, sit in the meeting room (hard wooden benches in a hut of beaten earth, roofed with plastic sheeting) to go over the statistics.…