Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Momento mori

  • The Girl with a Pearl Earring—A vanitas?

    James Lindesay Leicester, United Kingdom   Girl with a Pearl Earring. Johannes Vermeer. circa 1665. Mauritshuis. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. It is a truism that you only have one opportunity to see a picture for the first time. However, in our image-saturated age, by the time you get to see a famous painting in…

  • Death and dying

    Tolani Olonisakin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA   Memento mori, remember death. Photo Credit: Southtyrolean, Stencil art. Seville, Spain. Six weeks after I turned eighteen, I lost my father. I was told he died of a cardiac arrest. One minute he was reading the morning paper, and the next minute he lay sprawled across the living room floor,…