Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Review of Health Humanities in Postgraduate Medical Education: A Handbook to the Heart of Medicine

  • Ancient medicine on the Nile

    Egyptian medicine was already highly advanced by 5000 BCE, and its physicians were highly esteemed. During the Neolithic or last phase of the Stone Age, a flourishing civilization had developed on the fertile banks of the Nile, and around 3100 BCE, King Narmer (or Menes)… Read more

  • The memoirs of Catherine the Great: Forecasting death

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Courageous and voracious in her quest for power, Empress Catherine the Great (1729–1796) dominated the world stage of politics in the second half of the eighteenth century. The daughter of a Lutheran German prince, she traded her homeland, changed her… Read more

  • Meshamorphosis

    Leo GordonLos Angeles, California, United States As Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the Metropolitan Medical Center, awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a piece of synthetic mesh. Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the… Read more

  • Olives now and then

    Olives in their natural state are exceedingly bitter. I made that discovery by the roadside between Granada and Madrid when I reached up and plucked an olive from a tree. I later learned that olives are made edible by leaching out a bitter phenolic compound… Read more

  • Dominique-Vivant Denon, first director of the Louvre

    Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a polymath whose career spanned art, archaeology, diplomacy, and museum curation. Born into minor nobility on January 4, 1747, in Givry, Burgundy, he became one of the most influential cultural figures of his time. After studying law in Paris, Denon switched… Read more

  • Tinkering towards technology: Examples from the evolution of renal medicine in the UK

    Eric WillNicholas MarksUnited Kingdom “Tinkering” is a mindset that responds to calls for improvement or repair through piecemeal modification. It may involve novelty or rediscovery, and ranges from mechanics to imaging, the concrete to the abstract. A writer tinkers with a text, the artist with… Read more

  • Death playing a fiddle

    Rosemaria RoyDublin, Ireland Doctors stand at the crossroads as both healers and witnesses in the dance between life and death, easing suffering while still holding space for the inevitable. As frequent as one may face it, the concept of death is still not yet fully… Read more

  • Faustina Maratti’s poem and altarpiece on losing her infant son

    Stephen MartinThailand A most unusual altarpiece panel of the Virgin with the infants Christ and John the Baptist came to light recently. (Fig 1) The heavily-sawn pitch pine had an inscription on the back which was difficult to read. Studying the ink writing under violet… Read more

  • Recognizing nonverbal communication through art

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a recent excursion to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a themed tour, medical students gathered to look at paintings of suffering and healing. For this medical humanities elective, led by faculty members, each small group viewed these images,… Read more

  • John Abernethy: A controversial surgeon

    JMS PearceHull, England John Abernethy (1764–1831) was renowned more for his brilliant teaching than for his surgical skills, but as an eccentric and gifted communicator, he attracted many students and admirers.1 A stalwart of medical education, he was a founder of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital medical… Read more

  • Psychoactive substances and mermaid sightings at sea

    Martine MussiesMaastricht, Netherlands Since the earliest long-term sea voyages, from the Age of Exploration to the eighteenth century, sailors have been known to report seeing mermaids—enigmatic creatures with human-like upper bodies and fish-like tails. These accounts have long been a subject of fascination and speculation.… Read more

  • Plutarch and medical practice (c. 46–120 CE)

    Plutarch does not immediately come to mind when one considers the history of medicine. Known primarily as an historian, he was born in Chaeronea when Greece was already part of the Roman Empire. Widely influential, he was an important biographer, philosopher, and teacher, with a… Read more