Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Medical Pioneer

  • America’s first bronchoscopist

    J. Gordon Frierson Palo Alto, California, United States   Autographed portrait of Chevalier Jackson. Wellcome Collection. CC BY 4.0. One day, in the tough coal-mining city of Pittsburgh of the early 1900s, two Sisters of Mercy brought an emaciated, severely dehydrated, seven-year-old girl to a doctor’s office. Sometime earlier the girl had swallowed lye, thinking…

  • Mary Josephine Hannan: portrait of a pioneer

    Katie King Atlanta, Georgia, United States   Mary Hannan. Photograph by Cowell, Simla. Via the Wellcome Collection. Public Domain. Mary Josephine Hannan was an Irish medical pioneer, an outspoken woman with a strong sense of morality, a fervid supporter of women’s rights, and a champion of children and public health. She spent her life fighting…