Movie review: Kings Row – assassins in white coats
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Above all, I must not play God.” — Revised Hippocratic Oath2 Artificial limb factory in Rome: six women working at benches, one using a sewing machine, and one stitching the back of a full-length leg, used in reference to Drake’s fate in the film. Photo by Studio Leonardi, […]
Qualis artifex pereo
Henri Colt Laguna Beach, California, United States Man sitting. Photo by Gadiel Lazcano on Unsplash. This short story is a work of fiction. Translation: “What an artist the world is losing with me!” — cited by Suctonius, The Twelve Caesars, Nero 49; Loeb ed., 2:177 Michael had jet black hair and sorrowful brown […]
Hope
Rima Nasser Beirut, Lebanon Cedar tree of Lebanon. Originally located atop the police and investigative branch building in Martyr’s Square in downtown Beirut. Photo by an anonymous photographer. 2021. Private collection. Modified from the original by Rima Nasser. Published with permission. “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. This is not an incendiary rant about […]
Lebanon: a thumbprint in medicine
Jonathan Mina Beirut, Lebanon Fig 1. Dr. Debakey, holding the MicroMed-DeBakey VAD (ventricular assist device) with one of his heart transplant patients, David Saucier, a NASA Johnson Space Center engineer. Photo by NASA. July 29, 2013. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0. Lebanon is a country that has long developed and exported physicians and other […]
The talented Dr. Cotton and other quacks
Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States Portrait of Henry Andrews Cotton from Appleton’s Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1924. Via Wikimedia. Over the centuries there has been a surfeit of talented medical quacks in all parts of the world. The word “quack,” indeed, is derived from the archaic Dutch word “quacksalver,” meaning “boaster who […]
Eugen Bleuler and schizophrenia
JMS Pearce East Yorks, England, United Kingdom Fig 1. Eugen Bleuler, 1900. from: G. Wehr, Jung, ed. René Coeckelberghs, Collection Les Grands Suisses, ISBN=2-8310-0009-2. Clinique du Burghölzli. Paul Eugen Bleuler (1857-1939) (Fig 1) was one of the most influential psychiatrists of his time, best known today for his introduction of the term schizophrenia to […]
“Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”
JMS Pearce Hull, England Fig 1: Emil Kraepelin, 1921 at the Department of Psychiatry, Munich. Source “Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”1 The pages of history seen through the retrospectroscope often provide dull facts rather than insights into the personalities and driving forces of its famous subjects. Such is the case of Emil Wilhelm […]
The medicine in our stars
Nishitha Bujala Hyderabad, Telangana, India Photo by Khamkéo Vilaysing on Unsplash I have been fascinated by the night sky for as long as I can remember. I would see the tiny, indiscernible stars and wonder if there was a bigger meaning to the world than what I had perceived. As I grew up, I […]
Counseling
Migel Jayasinghe England, UK This article was previously published by the author between the years of 2006 and 2018. The original publisher has since been lost and the article edited and republished by Hektoen International staff. Other appearances of this text elsewhere on the internet may be unauthorized. Hampstead Heath, 1970 by Jo Brocklehurst. The British […]
Carl Gustav Jung
Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Carl Jung. Photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Creative Commons. In the autumn of 1913, Carl Gustav Jung was traveling alone by train through the rust and amber forest of the Swiss countryside. The thirty-eight-year-old psychiatrist had been lately troubled by strange dreams and a rising sense of tension, […]