Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: New England Journal of Medicine

  • Leprosy and armadillos: Handle with care

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) is a chronic, disfiguring, and handicapping infectious disease. It was known in the ancient world, and evidence of the disease has been found from 2000 B.C.1 In the sixth and seventh centuries it spread in Europe, peaking in incidence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.2 The disease may have…

  • A bad taste in the mouth: over fifty years of doubt about MSG

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Monosodium glutamate’s bad reputation started with one letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. From there, the truth was confused by misinformation and prejudice. Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote to NEJM in April of 1968, sharing his observation that after eating at American Chinese restaurants he experienced “numbness…

  • C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the twentieth century

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Stroke, in spite of its serious and widespread impact, had long received little interest from physicians. C. Miller Fisher, one of the twentieth century’s outstanding neurologists and researchers, revolutionized the management of stroke. In this well-researched and readable biography, Louis Caplan, a distinguished Harvard neurologist and former trainee of…

  • Thriving in the face of uncertainty

    Sally MatherChris MillardIan SabroeSheffield, England The experience of uncertainty has appeared as a frequent narrative in articles, autobiographies, and memoirs written by doctors over the last century. A persistent belief that better training, tests, evidence, and pathways will reduce uncertainty has not been borne out in the experience of contemporary clinicians. Beliefs about uncertainty in…

  • Literatim: Essays at the intersections of medicine and culture

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK In this interesting collection, medical historian Howard Markel has brought together his previously published essays from the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and the PBS Newsletter into one volume. The collection of eighty pieces covers a wide range of topics that have interested Markel over…