Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Margaret Edson

  • The practice of looking inward

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States I am a medical humanities educator and museum docent. I use art images to teach clinical skills to family medicine residents. Images grab residents’ attention and simplify emotional learning by making it more engaging and accessible. A painting can transform… Read more

  • Early medicine in Australia

    Eighteen years after James Cook landed in Australia in 1770, the First Fleet arrived, carrying convicts, marines, and physicians. The colony’s surgeons faced overwhelming challenges—starvation, malnutrition, and disease—in a climate much unlike Britain’s. Dr. John White, the principal surgeon, recorded in his journals the “fevers,… Read more

  • The early Medici in Florence

    The history of the beautiful city of Florence dates to the early Middle Ages and is intertwined with that of the remarkable Medici family. Their very name suggests a medical origin, and legend has it that an early Medici was physician to Charlemagne. As early… Read more

  • Procession of honor

    Nancy ChedidCambridge, Massachusetts, United States We all heard the alarm. Strident and jarring. As medical interns in our eighth month of training—our nerves primed, our blood already rising—we steeled ourselves for the announcement that must follow. Was it a cardiac arrest? An ambulance, rushing accident… Read more

  • Isaac Disraeli: Curiosities of Literature and other publications

    Benjamin Disraeli (1766–1848), the famous prime minister of England, described his father Isaac as a great disappointment to his parents. He was a “difficult and rather morose child … pale and pensive, with large dark brown eyes, and flowing hair…timid, susceptible, lost in reverie, fond… Read more

  • Survival of the happiest

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It has been said that the impact of whatever happens to us owes 10% to the fact itself and 90% to our own response. Consequently, our happiness—or lack of it—under any circumstances is largely in our hands. This is quite obvious in… Read more

  • Sir Benjamin Brodie

    JMS PearceHull, England Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783–1862) was born in Winterslow, near Salisbury. His father, Peter Bellinger Brodie, was the local rector. Having graduated from Worcester College, Oxford, he chose to educate Benjamin at home since he was unable to meet the fees of the… Read more

  • Chicago’s vanished hospitals

    Hospitals, like their patients and their doctors, do not last forever. They close their doors and vanish into history. In Chicago, they failed because their patients moved to the suburbs, methods of reimbursement changed, and medicine itself keeps on evolving. Most of the hospitals listed… Read more

  • The Latest Decalogue  

    Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) Thou shalt have one God only; who  Would tax himself to worship two?  God’s image nowhere shalt thou see,  Save haply in the currency:  Swear not at all; since for thy curse  Thine enemy is not the worse:  At church on Sunday to attend  Will help to keep… Read more

  • The last days of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594–1612)

    Christopher DuffinLondon, England As the eldest son of King James I (1566–1625) and Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), Henry Frederick (Fig. 1) was heir apparent to the English throne. His premature death from typhoid fever in 1612 meant that he was succeeded by his younger brother,… Read more

  • The belief in bacteria: An early history of microbiology

    Mostafa ElbabaDoha, Qatar The history of microbiology is a compelling narrative of how humanity slowly unraveled the unseen world of microscopic life. The field has fundamentally transformed medicine, biology, and human understanding of disease. But for millennia, explanations for the origins of life and the… Read more

  • The Living Text

    Simran AnandBoston, Massachusetts, United States From the open pages of a book rises a body formed from organs, a brain, DNA, molecules, and a microscope. Each element represents a piece of science—knowledge, discovery, and the study of life at every level, from cells to systems.… Read more