Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: murder

  • A 130-year-old medical cold case: Who was Jack the Ripper?

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, USA As murder followed murder and mutilated bodies were discovered and described in the press, one can imagine the fear that swept the hardscrabble Whitechapel section of London in 1888. Populated with many immigrants, mostly from Eastern Europe and Russia, unemployment was rampant and tenements were found on most streets. It…

  • Medical murder

    Susan JacobAustralia Medical murder or clinicide is defined by the psychiatrist Robert Kaplan as the “unnatural death of multiple patients in the course of treatment by a doctor.”1 Medical murder must be distinguished from euthanasia in that patients do not request the termination of their life. It must also be differentiated from death resulting from…

  • Choose your poison: The curious case of Dr. Waite

    Lisa MullenneauxNew York, NY, USA With mahogany dining rooms, wall safes, a chauffeur’s lounge, and a curved façade designed to catch summer breezes off the Hudson River, Manhattan’s Colosseum apartments set a new standard of elegant living. Newlyweds Clara and Arthur W. Waite chose one of the deluxe full-floor, four-bedroom suites when they arrived in…

  • The anatomist’s violin

    Elizabeth A.J. ScottEdinburgh, Scotland “Its tone was pure. The music enchanting.” So read the review of music played on Dr. Robert Knox’s violin for the visit of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons to Edinburgh in 1983. But if the instrument could speak as well as sing, what an amazing tale it would tell. Robert…