Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: period

  • A brief history of menstruation

    Fangzhou LuoPortland, Oregon, United States After a few failed attempts to redirect a flirtatious student to “higher pleasures” like music, the Ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Hypatia resorted to revealing where she was in her menstrual cycle to deter him. The philosopher who recorded this—Damascius—does not specify if this student was Orestes,1 who remained a…

  • Bloodletting and the treatment of menstrual disorders in early modern England

    Rhianna ElliottCambridgeshire, United Kingdom Bloodletting, also known as “phlebotomy,” was a common preventive and therapeutic medical practice in early modern England. Its theoretical foundation was in humorism, the ancient medical system where bodily health depended on the balance between four fluid humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile). Yet even amongst lay people with…

  • A history of blood: hysteria, taboos, and evil

    Danielle DalechekNorfolk, Virginia, United States “Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?”— Carl Jung Historically, the opposite of purity was often viewed and represented as evil. This was especially true if you happened to be a woman. Even the most chaste and abiding women…