Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Mississippi

  • When needs trumped faith and dogma: Early twentieth century Los Angeles women’s social conscience

    Saty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United StatesMichael EnghLos Angeles, California, United States In early twentieth century Los Angeles, efforts to improve social conditions and meet the needs of the underserved and deprived often sprang from faith-based social organizations. Two notable women pioneers, Mary Julia Workman (1871-1964) and Katherine B. Higgins (1880-1967), strove to elevate the social…

  • The germ of laziness

    Enrique Chaves-Carballo Overland Park, Kansas, United States   Charles Wardell Stiles (1867-1941). Parasitologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Portrait ca. 1912. Wikimedia Commons Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation was chartered on June 1909 “to promote the well-being and to advance the civilization of the peoples of the United States and its territories and possessions and of…

  • How conflict and bureaucracy delayed the elimination of yellow fever

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States The Golden Age of Bacteriology (1876–1906) saw the emergence of techniques to cultivate bacterial pathogens and develop vaccines and anti-toxin therapies against them. The new bacteriologists rapidly identified the agents causing anthrax, gonorrhea, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, tetanus, diphtheria, plague, and other infectious diseases. One microbe that remained stubbornly elusive…