Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Nicolas Roberto Robles

  • Gioachino Rossini: Opera, cuisine, and gonorrhea

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Born in a family of musicians in Pesaro, Italy, Gioachino Rossini1 displayed inordinate talent from an early age, encouraged by his mother Anna, a notable singer, so that by the age of six, he was already playing the triangle in his father’s musical group. In 1799, Rossini’s father was sent to…

  • Miguel Hernández

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Miguel Hernández was born on October 30, 1910, in Orihuela (Alicante, Spain). His father, Miguel Hernández Sánchez, was a cattle dealer, and his mother, Concepción Gilabert Giner, did the housework and took care of their four children. Miguel had very few years of schooling. At the age of four, he attended…

  • Philip the Handsome and the plague

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Philip of Habsburg was born in Bruges in 1478. He was the son of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, in a marriage that would ultimately extend control of the House of Austria over the Burgundian Netherlands. Philip was not yet four…

  • King Wamba’s poisoning with cytisine

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain In AD 409, the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Suevi and the Vandals (of Germanic stock) and the Alans (of Asian origin). The Visigoths came next. They had entered into an alliance with imperial Rome with the purpose of ejecting these invaders from Iberia, and after several years of warfare,…

  • Baudelaire’s spleen

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux,Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très-vieux,Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant les courbettes,S’ennuie avec ses chiens comme avec d’autres bêtes.Rien ne peut l’égayer, ni gibier, ni faucon,Ni son peuple mourant en face du balcon. I am like the king of a rainy country, richbut…

  • Clausewitz’s death: Cholera and melancholy

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain “Sollte mich ein früher Tod in dieser Arbeit unterbrechen”(“If an early death should terminate my work”)— Carl von Clausewitz, Vom Kriege Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the psychological and political aspects of waging war. He is remembered chiefly for his work…

  • Love and syphilis: The marriage of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

    Nicolas Roberto Robles Diego Peral  Caceres, Spain   Figure 1. Portrait of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer. Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. ¡Cuánta nota dormía en sus cuerdas, como el pájaro duerme en las ramas, esperando la mano de nieve que sabe arrancarlas! How many notes sleep in its…

  • Jorge Luis Borges: Brilliant blindness

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Penumbra de la palomallamaron los hebreos a la iniciación de la tardecuando la sombra no entorpece los pasosy la venida de la noche se adviertecomo una música esperada y antigua,como un grato declive. Twilight of the dovethe Hebrews called the initiation of the afternoonwhen the shadow does not hinder the footstepsand…

  • The romantic suicide: Karoline von Günderrode

    Nicolás Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Suicide, often occurring as an impulsive gesture or from underlying depression, has long been an important cause of death among young people, as exemplified within recent memory by the wave of suicides that followed the death of Marilyn Monroe. Historically, in the preromantic period, it was precipitated by the suicide of…

  • August Von Platen, inspiration for Death in Venice

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBandajoz, Spain Weil da, wo Schönheit waltet, Liebe waltet Because where beauty reigns, love reigns – Sonette aus Venedig. August von Platen was a German poet whose death inspired Thomas Mann to write Death in Venice. Descended from an impoverished noble family, he attended the Cadet School at Munich from ages ten to…