Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: medical history

  • Hiroshima seventy-five years after the bombing

    Cristóbal Berry-CabánFort Bragg, North Carolina, United States “At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in…

  • William Cheselden, father of modern British surgery

    William Cheselden was the most eminent English surgeon of the first half of the eighteenth century.1,2 Born in Leicestershire in 1688 just two weeks before William of Orange landed in England, he learned Greek and Latin at school, then was apprenticed to a local barber-surgeon. At fifteen he went to London and was again apprenticed,…

  • The bullet in Garibaldi’s ankle

    Giuseppe Garibaldi will forever be remembered as the greatest hero of the Italian risorgimento and struggle for independence. Even today there is no city in Italy, large or small, that has not raised a statue in his honor. He had been popular even before Italian unification, throughout Europe and especially in England. Had he not…

  • The death of King George II

    In November 1760, the King of Great Britain rose early as was his custom and drank his habitual cup of chocolate. He then went to use his commode on wheels, and minutes later was discovered slumped on the floor, dead. The next day his physician, Frank Nicholls, “opened the body” and found the king had…

  • Leukemia past and present: Lessons learned and future opportunities

    Nada HusseinGiza, Egypt “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward,” said Winston Churchill in a meeting at The Royal College of Physicians in 1944. At that time, leukemia was a fatal disease.1 Representing 8% of all cancers incidence today,2 it had long been regarded as an inflammatory disorder because of…

  • Dirty, dark, dangerous: Coal miners’ nystagmus

    Ronald FishmanChicago, Illinois, United States It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,Where the danger is double and pleasures are fewWhere the rain never falls and the sun never shinesIt’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine. From the song “Dark as a Dungeon” – Merle Travis Nystagmus is a repetitive oscillation of the…

  • Is Mary Seacole the new mother of nursing?

    Mariella ScerriMellieha, Malta The promotion of Jamaican businesswoman and “doctress” Mary Seacole as the pioneer nurse in place of Florence Nightingale was given considerable credence early in 2013, when Seacole was named a “pioneer of health care” by the UK Department of Health in its new Leadership Awards Programme.1 She had already been dubbed “pioneer…

  • Arthritis in Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands

    Ariana ShaariNew York, New York, United States Albrecht Durer is considered one of the masters of German Renaissance art and has been dubbed “the da Vinci of the North.” He is especially esteemed for elevating printmaking to an art form and for deeply psychological and technically impressive works on religious subjects such as Life of…

  • Royal blood: Queen Victoria and the legacy of hemophilia in European royalty

    Carys O’NeillChicago, IL Known for restoring the reputation of a monarchy tarnished by the extravagance of her predecessors and reigniting a faith in empire through an embrace of civic and diplomatic duties, the legacy of Queen Victoria (1819–1901, r. 1837–1901) shaped a new role for the position of queen and the idea of her kingdom.…

  • William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin

    The picturesque island of Mackinac lies three miles off the coast of Michigan, at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan. It is a favorite resort where tourists can admire old French-style buildings with tall slated roofs, ride in open carriages pulled by horses that know when to turn or stop, and stay at the…