Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Mariel Tishma

  • “For their own sakes”: The Edinburgh Seven, Surgeon’s Hall Riot, and the fate of English medical women

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh. Photograph of engraving in the 1890 edition of Cassell’s Old and New Edinburgh by James Grant. Photo by Peter Stubbs. Via Wikimedia. “There seems to be practically no doubt now that women are and will be doctors. The only question really remaining is, how thoroughly…

  • Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte: tradition, assimilation, and healing

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Fig 1. Susan La Flesche Picotte. 1889. Drexel University College of Medicine Legacy Center Archives & Special Collections. Published with permission. “My office hours are any and all hours of the day and night.” — Susan LaFlesche Picotte1   It was August of 1889 and Dr. Susan LaFlesche Picotte…

  • A bad taste in the mouth: over fifty years of doubt about MSG

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   A Chinese Food Storefront in New York, NY. Photo by Jkusachi. June 2019. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Monosodium glutamate’s bad reputation started with one letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. From there, the truth was confused by misinformation and prejudice. Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok…

  • Justine Siegemund, opening doorways to midwifery

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States In the mid-1600s, midwife Justine Siegemund was a household name for mothers in Silesia, part of modern-day Poland. She served patients of every class in Legnica, in Berlin, and beyond, and published an obstetric manual which became one of the most popular midwifery books of its time. Details on her…

  • Body and soul, balance and the Sibyl of the Rhine: the life and medicine of Saint Hildegard of Bingen

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Hildegard von Bingen receives divine inspiration and passes it on to her writer. Miniature from the Rupertsberger Codex des Liber Scivias. Via Wikimedia St. Hildegard of Bingen wrote two medical texts, three books of visions and prophecies, one of the first mystery plays, songs, musical compositions, and letters.…

  • Frankincense and myrrh: medicinal resin worth more than gold

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Incense. Frankincense on coal. Photo: birdy. 2007. CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia. Boswellia and Commiphora trees are scraggly, sharp, and unfriendly. Growing close to the ground in the arid desert, they have short trunks and fanning branches, sometimes looking more like shrubs than trees. But despite their unlikely…

  • The global journey of variolation

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Humanity has eliminated only one infectious disease—smallpox. Smallpox is a very old disease and efforts to prevent it are almost as old. They included a technique called variolation, also known as inoculation or engrafting, in which individuals were infected with live smallpox virus to produce a milder form of the…

  • Women in the medical profession: The trial of Jacoba Felicie de Almania

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States A meeting of doctors at the university of Paris. From the “Chants royaux” manuscript, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. BNF, Français 1537, fol. 27v. Source In November 1322 a group of folk healers and empirics were put on trial by the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Paris. Their crime…

  • A surgeon and a gentleman: the life of James Barry

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Dr. James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche. Unknown Artist. c1850.   “Do not consider whether what I say is a young man speaking, but whether my discussion with you is that of a man of understanding.”1 – Dedication of the thesis of James Barry In November of 1809,…

  • The history and mystery of cupping

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States   Peasant Spa of Krapinske Toplice, Yugoslavia. Where ancient method of cupping using cow horns is practised. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY Maybe your chest hurts from coughing, or maybe your muscles ache. Maybe you feel sluggish and anxious, worn out, and not sure why. There is a treatment, some…