Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: oxygen

  • Omphalos

    Margaret NowaczykHamilton, Ontario, Canada Once, I linked you to the woman who gave birth to you: for forty weeks, a twisted pearly cord, pulsing with two syncopated heartbeats, bound you two together. It fed you and gave you oxygen. It attached you to life. In Greek mythology, the omphalos is the center of the universe,…

  • Ode to baroque and other musical genres

    George ChristopherAda, Michigan, United States Imagine a musical style that is emotionally evocative yet highly organized, thereby conferring structure to emotion; that gives artistic expression of the fusion of emotion and reason; that mimics biology at cellular through ecological levels through its organized complexity; that brings unity from the diversity of multiple simultaneous melodic lines;…

  • Young, pretty, and not quite right

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Unless we are in pediatrics, we start in clinical practice with our patients tending to be in the age range of our parents, or even older. Increasingly, as the grey in our temples is promoted to silver, their mean age gets closer to ours, and the percentage of younger patients keeps rising.…

  • The discovery of oxygen

    David PooleMichael WhiteKansas, United StatesBrian WhippPowys, Wales We live submerged in a sea of life-preserving oxygen. As I sit at my desk, my diaphragm contracts rhythmically, powering a breath every four seconds or so. Each breath is barely perceptible – but for the dust particles – tiny whirling dervishes emblazoned by the low winter’s sun.…