Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Medical care

  • Giovanni Boccaccio on pandemics past and present

    Constance Markey Chicago, IL   The plague of Florence, 1348; an episode in the Decameron by Boccaccio. Etching by L. Sabatelli the elder after G. Boccaccio. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)) Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) is universally celebrated for his masterpiece The Decameron, an appealing assemblage of one hundred loosely connected novellas,…

  • The Red Cross and hematology pioneers

    Barnabas PastoryDar es Salaam, Tanzania Providing medical care to suffering humankind constitutes an important part of the Red Cross’ service scope. History records an important connection between the Red Cross and pioneers in the subject matter of blood. The humanitarian service of the Red Cross began between 1859 and 1863 with the advocacy efforts of…

  • One thing we can’t live without

    Liam Farrell Crossmaglen, Ireland   When God appeared to me and ordained me as his prophet, I was rather disappointed. He was tall and rather overtly Aryan, with a long, white beard (no genuflection to the minorities), and worst of all, had a cultured English accent. He doesn’t sound one bit like Morgan Freeman, I…