Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Mystic

  • Margery Kempe: Medieval visions, delusions, and hallucinations

    Margery Kempe (c. 1393 – after 1438) was an English Christian mystic who dictated autobiographic notes to a scribe. Married when twenty years old, she had a postpartum psychotic episode after the birth of her first child and went through at least fourteen subsequent pregnancies. Psychotic symptoms, delusions, and hallucinations continued all her life. She had…

  • When I heard the learn’d epidemiologist

    Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Sitting on the maroon recliner in my den, I am having trouble concentrating on the epidemiologist who is talking on the television. He points to a Covid hot zone on a color-coded map of the United States. The screen changes before I can locate Virginia. Were we brown, or yellow?…