Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Philadelphia

  • Samuel Mudd, MD: Good Samaritan or conspirator?

    Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States   Figure 1 Samuel A. Mudd, MD. Wikimedia. As he rose in the Washington, D.C. courtroom on June 30, 1865, to hear his verdict, Dr. Samuel Mudd looked older than his thirty-one years (Figure 1). His odobene mustache framed his mouth and his goatee was speckled with prematurely…

  • Dr. Fanny Halpern, a psychiatric go-between of 1930s Shanghai

    Richard Zhang Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   “Dr. F.G. Halpern” in an advertisement for the Puci Sanatorium in the Shen Bao, September 20, 1935. source On September 20, 1935, a lengthy advertisement in one of Shanghai’s most popular newspapers, the Shen Bao, celebrated the recent opening of the Shanghai Puci Sanatorium (上海普濨療養院).1 The sanatorium would…

  • A case of toxic blood

    Shruthi DeivasigamaniPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a blustery winter day, a molecule of water condenses around a particle of dust in the air. The structure grows in size as it falls closer to earth, and before it hits the ground outside, it has crystallized into a perfect, six-sided snowflake. Miles away, a thirty-one-year-old woman is…

  • A city of two tales

    J. Trig Brown Durham, North Carolina, United States   “Homeless Jesus” by Timothy P. Schmalz, SculpturebyTPS.com Installed at Saint John’s Hospice, a ministry of Catholic Social Service of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Photo by Sarah Webb / Courtesy of CatholicPhilly.com CME dawns. Hello, Philly, city of brotherly love, home to Homeless Jesus two blocks off…

  • Dr. Rebecca Cole and racial health disparities in nineteenth-century Philadelphia

    Meg Vigil-Fowler Grand Junction, Colorado   The anatomy lecture room at the Woman’s Medical College of New York Infirmary. Published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.  April 16, 1870. Library of Congress. From the beginning of black women’s professional involvement in medicine, public health marked a central component of the scope of their practice. Rebecca Cole,…

  • Labor of love

    Mary OakSeattle, Washington, USA Each week my elderly father and I watch babies being born. In the silver-shadowed flickers of a television, we sit as we often did in my childhood. Now in the spectral shade of his decelerated years, I care for him. He spends a lot of time watching TV. I join him…

  • Philadelphia’s plague

    Hayat El Boukari Tetouan, Morocco Four plates showing the development of yellow fever. From the title: Observations sur la fièvre jaune, faites à Cadix, en 1819 / par MM. Pariset et Mazet. Authors: Etienne Pariset (1770-1847) and André Mazet (1793-1821). Wellcome Collection. Public domain. “A narrative of the proceedings of the black people, during the…

  • When empathy strikes and the curtain falls

    Yasmine Koukaz Philadelphia, PA, United States   One slow November afternoon, while sitting in an advisory dean’s meeting about the countless items I needed to add to my resume before applying to residency, I received a surprise in my inbox. It was an email about a fifteen-week theater course that would be held on campus…