Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Nobel Prize

  • The Neuron Doctrine: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. Camillo Golgi and Santiago Ramon y Cajal. From “The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906,” The Nobel Prize. There can be few medical works of such importance as the study of the fine structure of the nerve cell that began in the last three decades of the…

  • The forerunner

    Shafiqah Samarasam Malaysia   Skyline in Kuala Lumpur with haze. 2004. Photo by Nesnad. Via Wikimedia. CC BY 3.0. Southeast Asia has experienced detrimental, large-scale air pollution for decades. Known as the “Southeast Asia haze,” this transboundary pollution is largely caused by illegal agricultural fires in the forests of Indonesia. The lingering smoke results in breathing…

  • Research opportunities for medical students and residents

    Edward Tabor Washington, DC, United States   Portrait of W. T. O Forssmann from an unknown French newspaper. Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Medical residents who engage in scientific research obtain numerous advantages that may enhance their careers. They acquire analytical skills, refine their critical thinking, and may develop better future training opportunities. Unfortunately, scientific…

  • A walk with giants

    Herbert Ausubel Valley Stream, New York, United States   Herbert Ausubel HMS making rounds with Dr. Eliot Joslin the morning after Dr. Joslin underwent an appendectomy. Drawing by Dr. Ernest Greenberg and Louise Chiasson. Having had the opportunity to receive a medical education at Harvard Medical School, I was exposed to several individuals who were…

  • Nobel Laureate Surgeons

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States Mohammad Ezzi Jizan, Saudi Arabia   Originally published in the World Journal of Surgery and Surgical Research 2020; 3: 1206 under a Creative Commons Attribution License. Republished with author permission.   Introduction The Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine has been awarded to 219 scientists in the last 119…

  • Book review: A Place in History: The Biography of John C. Kendrew

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of A Place in History: The Biography of John C. Kendrew by Paul M. Wassarman. Remarkable scientific advances in the twentieth century were also crucial for the field of medicine. In the new field of molecular biology, for example, scientists applied the principles of physics and chemistry…

  • Book review: Viruses, Plagues, and History by M. B. A. Oldstone

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of Viruses, Plagues, & History: Past, Present, and Future Second Edition by Michael B. A. Oldstone.   The first edition of Viruses, Plagues, and History was published to great acclaim twenty years ago and has now been updated to include the pandemics of the twenty-first century. These…

  • Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994)

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1: Dorothy Hodgkin. by Godfrey Argent. National Portrait Gallery, London. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Dorothy Hodgkin (Fig 1), though not by religion, had close Quaker affinities through her marriage and through her spirited pacifism. She possessed a unique mixture of scientific skills that allowed her to extend the use of…

  • John Dalton

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. John Dalton. Line engraving by W. H. Worthington, 1823, after J. Allen, 1814. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) John Dalton (1766–1844) (Fig 1) is one of the most revered scientists of the last 250 years. His origins were humble. He was the son of Deborah and…

  • Baruch Blumberg who discovered the hepatitis B virus

    A NASA portrait of Dr. Baruch Blumberg in 1999. Image credit: NASA/Tom Trower Baruch Samuel Blumberg, like Barack Obama, was called Barry by his friends. In 1976 he received the Nobel Prize for saving millions of lives by discovering the cause of hepatitis B, a plague that had afflicted mankind since time immemorial. Born in…