Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Neurosurgery

  • Francisco Graña, eminent Peruvian neurosurgeon

    Francisco Graña. Via International Museum of Surgical Science Facebook. Francisco Graña (1879–1959) was a Peruvian neurosurgeon who once removed a subdural hematoma using 2,000-year-old tools, including a saw of volcanic obsidian glass and a bronze chisel, borrowed from the Peru National Museum of Archaeology. Born into a family of medical professionals, Graña studied medicine at…

  • Alexa Canady, MD: The first Black woman neurosurgeon

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”– Albert Einstein Alexa Canady (b. 1950) was the daughter of Clinton Canady, Jr., DDS, and Elizabeth Canady, a civil rights activist and the first African American to serve on the Michigan Board of Education. Alexa’s maternal grandmother taught at Lane College, a…

  • Walter Edward Dandy

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Figure 1. Walter Edward Dandy (left) and Harvey Cushing (right). Dandy from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions Portrait Collection.2 In the history of American neurosurgery, two names stand out from the rest: Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) and Walter Edward Dandy (1886–1946). Sadly, they were inveterate rivals. Dandy was undoubtedly a brilliant pioneer…

  • Walter E. Dandy, one of the founders of neurosurgery

    Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   Johns Hopkins, where Dandy studied. Photo by Lizardraley99, 2012. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 Three pioneers established the discipline of neurosurgery. They were the British surgeon Victor Horsley and the Americans Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy. Both Americans were surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dandy (1886-1946)…

  • Life lessons from death

    Pedro T. LimaRecife, Brazil “How would you like to die?” the professor asked without breaking eye contact. I averted my gaze to ponder the question, but no answers came to mind. “I’ve never thought about it. I guess that I would hope to be with people I love,” I stuttered, still collecting my thoughts. “You…

  • Harvey Cushing and pituitary diseases

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, UK   Fig 1. Harvey Cushing. Cropped from: Harvey Williams Cushing and Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. Photograph, 1938. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain. Of the many aspects and contributions of Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939) (Fig 1), this sketch concentrates on his identification of a basophilic tumor of the pituitary with adrenal hyperfunction that…

  • Harvey Cushing: Surgeon, Author, Soldier, Historian 1869-1939

    John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Harvey Williams Cushing. Photograph by W.(?)W.B. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Harvey Cushing was a third-generation physician, born to a family of New England Puritans who had migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid 1830s. His father and grandfather were successful physicians; family members on both…

  • Wilder Penfield

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Wilder Penfield, Stamp Wilder Penfield was not only a great surgeon and a great scientist, he was an even greater human being. -Sir George Pickering, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University   Wilder Penfield (1891-1976) (Fig. 1) was the most gifted pioneer of Canadian neurosurgery.…

  • 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…

  • The smell of burning rubber: The fatal illness of George Gershwin

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, USA George Gershwin, 28 March 1937. Photograph by Carl Van Vetchen. 1937. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division. On the morning of Monday July 12, 1937, New Yorkers who had just suffered through five days of a heat wave that left thirty-eight people dead, awoke to read on the…