Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Queen’s Square

  • Forensic psychiatry in Marco Ricci’s Flight into Egypt

    Stephen MartinThailandAidan JonesUnited Kingdom The Venetian artist Marco Ricci1 (1676–1730) painted Flight into Egypt after being in serious trouble. (Fig 1) We know it was created in England because it is on two individual yard-wide canvases, strip-glued together, and not woven in continental meters. Initialed… Read more

  • Antezana Hospital, Spain

    Mojca RamšakLjubljana, Slovenia In the center of the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, stands an exceptional institution—the Antezana Hospital, officially Hospital de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia. It is one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals in Western Europe, having functioned for… Read more

  • Ancient India in 1,500 words

    Homo sapiens originated in Africa about 300,000 years ago and arrived in India in waves beginning about 65,000 years ago. Early populations were hunter-gatherers and did not adopt a sedentary way of life until about 7,000 years BCE, when they began to domesticate plants and… Read more

  • Rome’s Ospedale Santo Spirito: From ruin to revival

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Renowned for his restoration of the legendary Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere; 1414–1484) embellished Rome with such rapidity and magnitude that he earned the title Urbis Restaurator. Some lauded him as the new Augustus… Read more

  • The spleen and melancholy

    Old Democritus under a tree,Sits on a stone with book on knee;About him hang there many features,Of Cats, Dogs and such like creatures,Of which he makes anatomy,The seat of black choler to see.—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy The spleen could be described as occupying… Read more

  • The once fatal pernicious anemia

    For much of medical history, pernicious anemia was a baffling and invariably fatal disorder. Characterized by profound weakness, pallor, glossitis, and progressive neurologic decline,  it carried an ominous reputation. Its name—“pernicious”—reflected the despair of physicians who could offer no remedy. The symptoms of this disease… Read more

  • On clubfoot, orthopedics, art, and history

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel A clubfoot,1 or congenital talipes equinovarus (CTEV), is a birth defect in which the foot is inverted. If untreated, children with TEV often walk on their ankles, or on the sides of their feet. The condition occurs about one in every… Read more

  • Earl Bakken: Pacemaker pioneer and founder of Medtronic

    Ahmed NadeemChicago, Illinois, United States Earl Bakken was an electrical engineer who developed the external, battery-operated, wearable pacemaker. He was born in Minnesota in 1924 and received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. In… Read more

  • Jacobus Rau: Surgical innovator, renowned lithotomist, and educator at Leiden     

    Johann Jakob Rau, latinized to Johannes, was one of the most influential surgical innovators of early modern Europe, best known for transforming the treatment of urinary bladder stones through his lateral lithotomy technique. Born in 1668 in Baden-Baden, he was the son of wine merchant… Read more

  • Bernhard Siegfried Albinus: Anatomist and surgeon

    Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, originally called Weiss, was born at Frankfurt on the Oder in 1697. There his father was professor of medicine until 1702 when he was transferred to the chair of medicine at Leiden University. Thus young Bernhard began his education in the Netherlands… Read more

  • Agatha Christie’s first post-mortem

    Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Aficionados of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple could do worse than read Carla Valentine’s Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie.1 In the book’s introduction, we’re reminded that Christie, the “Queen of Crime,” remains the world’s all-time bestselling novelist, outsold only… Read more

  • Ignaz Semmelweis: The original hand hygiene pioneer

    Matthew HillAbdullah MubarikJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865) was born on July 1, 1818, in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of a wealthy grocer and the fifth of ten children. While little is known of his childhood, he would eventually go… Read more