Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Marquis Evremonde

  • A millennium of medical care in Kyiv

    Kyiv, one of Europe’s oldest cities, became the capital of Kyivan Rus, a powerful medieval state that united the Slavs living along the Dnipro River trade routes. After the adoption of Christianity in 988, Byzantine ideas about healing, charity, and hospital care entered the region… Read more

  • Elisha Perkins and his metallic tractors

    Xavier NesbitHobart, Australia In the closing years of the eighteenth century, a Connecticut country doctor named Elisha Perkins (1741-1799) produced one of early America’s strangest medical devices. In the process, he also unwittingly gave medicine one of its first clinical trials. Perkins, who had served… Read more

  • Two different kinds of odd speech: In schizophrenia and in poetry

    William TuckerNew York, New York, United States Understanding the odd speech of people with schizophrenia has generally been considered, by psychiatrists and the public alike, both futile and pointless. Often enigmatic and sometimes threatening, it has long been assumed that such speech results from disordered… Read more

  • Harken, Ibsen, and the birth of the Intensive Care Unit

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States When one reflects on the landmark advances of medicine in the 20th century, there is no shortage of achievements. The introduction of antibiotics, the use of numerous vaccines, organ transplantation, the multimodality treatment of cancers, the understanding of the genetic… Read more

  • The Horn of Africa

    The Horn of Africa points into the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Indian Ocean, resembling a rhinoceros horn. It consists of four nations: Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. It also includes the partially recognized state of Somaliland. A broader definition of the Horn would… Read more

  • Book Review of Signals: The Inside Story of Our Hormones

    Arpan K Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom In Signals, the endocrinologist Saira Hameed writes about a range of interesting patients seen in her clinic. Clinical stories are interwoven with snippets from the history of endocrinology, including pioneers and early experimenters. Diseases caused by an imbalance of… Read more

  • Lessons from the Great Apes

    The human race has made unprecedented advances in technology, but has also gained the ability to destroy the world it lives in. It came to this perilous situation as a descendant of an animal lineage that some 25 million years ago split itself into monkeys… Read more

  • Nigerian history and medical history

    Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, home to nearly 400 ethnic groups and hundreds of languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Hausa, and Edo. One of its early sophisticated societies, the Nok culture, flourished in central Nigeria around 1500 BCE and is famous for its terracotta… Read more

  • Teaching reflective empathy: Helping doctors hear the silent scream

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Communication skills are essential for medical professionals. High-quality care depends not only on accurate diagnosis but also on recognizing how illness is experienced and communicated. Much of a patient’s suffering is expressed nonverbally. Clinicians therefore need to develop the ability… Read more

  • Otto Lanz: Surgeon, art collector, humanist

    Robert HageGrenada In the long tradition of physician-humanists, few figures are as quietly compelling as Otto Lanz (1865–1935), a Swiss surgeon whose life unfolded not only in the operating theater but also among Renaissance paintings, antiquities, literature, and poetry. Although remembered primarily for the transverse… Read more

  • Amber: A versatile component of the early modern materia medica

    Christopher DuffinLondon, England Amber is an organic mineraloid made from fossilized plant resin. Forty-four-million-year-old amber from the Baltic region, particularly the Samland Peninsula in the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast, effectively supplied the pharmaceutical demands of western Europe. Mined since Paleolithic times, its distinctive… Read more

  • Saint Antipas: An ecclesiastical figure associated with toothache relief

    Eleni BarlaGregory TsoucalasHeraklion, Greece Saint Apollonia, a virgin martyr, is popularly regarded as the patron saint of dentistry and of those suffering from toothache. However, Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum, represents another important Christian figure closely associated with the history of dentistry and the relief… Read more