Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: migraine

  • Caleb Hillier Parry MD FRS

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Caleb Hillier Parry Hyperthyroidism or exophthalmic goiter, often called Graves’ disease or Basedow’s disease, was first recorded by Caleb Parry (1755-1822) (Fig 1) posthumously in 1825. William Osler called the affliction “Parry’s disease.” Caleb Parry was born in Cirencester, the son of Joshua Parry, a dissenting…

  • Johannes Jacob Wepfer (1620-1695)

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Johannes Jacob Wepfer. From https://www.prints-online.com/johann-jacob-wepfer-14108627.html The eminent physician Johannes Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, on the right bank of the Rhine. Little is written of his early years but the child Wepfer may have gazed and wondered about Schaffhausen’s countryside, its many oriel…

  • Richard Wagner, a man of many symptoms

    Richard Wagner, Munich. 1871. by Franz Hanfstaengl. Via Wikimedia. Richard Wagner was an extraordinarily talented musical genius. Almost singlehandedly he revolutionized opera, completing its transformation from the traditional recitative–aria format to a continuous musical drama. He was born in 1813 in turbulent times in Leipzig. There four months after his birth the combined forces of…

  • The migraine aura and royal astronomers

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. George Airy’s visual hallucinations from London, Edinb., and Dubl. Phil. Mag., ser. 4, 80: 19-21, 1865. reproduced in Jarcho S.11 Spleen sighs for ever on her pensive bed, Pain at her side and megrim at her head. — “Rape of the Lock”, Alexander Pope (1688-1744)  …

  • 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.…

  • Half-skull

    Sophia Wilson New Zealand   Photo © Chris Downer / Twelfth century headache / (cc-by-sa/2.0) a ghost shrieks at the window, threatens to break through, shatter eye-cover. throbbing fingers infiltrate soft crevices; neuronal mass pulsates. knife twists, gristle-turning; stoat gnaw, rat’s claw. mind summersaults to snap-trap pain, can’t let go its axon’s branch. cerebral crevices convolute;…

  • William Richard Gowers MD., FRS.

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig. 1 Gowers’ Manual. A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System. J London: J. & A. Churchill 1886 The name Gowers is a name hallowed in the minds of most neurologists as one of the great founders of neurological medicine in the Victorian era. He is probably best remembered…

  • Discovering migraines

    Catherine Lanser Madison, Wisconsin, United States   My headaches started after my first period when I was a freshman in high school. They were dull, daily, aching headaches that were manageable. I usually just took some acetaminophen and they went away. But none had been as bad as the one gripping me on one memorable…

  • A legacy of pain: Heredity and migraines

    Terri SinnottChicago, Illinois, United States A reporter doing a story on migraines asked me about my family’s tendencies toward them.1 With a bit of dark humor, I pointed to a family picture and said, instead of identifying them by name, that I would identify them by the treatments they use at a migraine’s onset. Left…

  • Migrainous scotomata in art

    JH McAuleyLondon, United Kingdom More than simply representing their visual environment, artists depict their visual experiences. Their work is invested with a personal emotional context. In some cases, the subject becomes the emotion itself, as conveyed in abstract colors and patterns or invoked by the expression on a human face; a popular example is of…