Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

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

  • The privilege of caring for three Nobel laureates and learning from another

    Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States My experience with Nobel laureates began on Monday, July 2, 1979. The previous weekend, I had started my urology residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. The outgoing resident had signed out the urology service to me the evening… Read more

  • The birds of death

    Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States I got to know the children’s hospital when I was in my second year of medical school and was assigned to the pediatric rotation. From one perspective, the building had the wrenching sadness of childhood disrupted by illness. But it… Read more

  • Girolamo Fracastoro and syphilis

    JMS Pearce Hull, England In 1924, London’s National Gallery received a bequest from the Mond family, an oil painting titled Portrait of Girolamo Fracastoro, attributed to Titian about 1528. What special attributes of a Veronese physician made him a suitable subject for the renowned artist… Read more

  • On culinary tasting and a genetic syndrome

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Laurent Grimod de La Reynière1,2 (1758–1837) studied law in Lausanne and on returning to Paris made his name by writing reviews for the Journal des théâtres in 1777–78 and some for the scandal chronicle Correspondence secrète, politique et littéraire. He survived… Read more

  • A trio of Confederate military surgeons: Samuel Moore, James McCaw and Joseph Jones

    Jonathan DavidsonDurham, North Carolina, United States The Civil War between the States took a heavy toll, claiming over 600,000 lives, or two percent of the population. Countless more suffered from injuries and other diseases. Reilly1 has listed some of the advances in medical care that… Read more

  • Israel Spach the biographer and the Lithopedion of Sens

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Israel Spach (Israele Spachio, Spachius) (1569–1610), was raised and studied in Strasbourg and later in Paris under Jean Riolan the Elder.1 He finished his medical studies at the University of Tübingen under Andreas Planer in 1581.2 In 1589 he returned to… Read more

  • The organic food movement

    The word organic in the context of chemistry refers to a substance built around a skeleton of carbon (unlike an inorganic substance that most often has no carbon in its formula.) In the world of food, however, organic means that the produce was grown under… Read more

  • The Painted Veil: Death from cholera in China

    The 1925 novel The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham derives its title from Percy Shelley’s 1824 sonnet, which begins “Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life.” The action takes place during a cholera epidemic in which a missionary doctor quotes… Read more

  • Surgeon’s Sorrow

    Nayaab MalikAberdeen, Scotland Artist statement Captivated by the daily battles that healthcare staff face at work, I aimed to depict the varied emotions that doctors experience on a routine basis. Each of my three canvases represents a distinct aspect of a surgeon’s emotional voyage. The… Read more

  • The Mauriacs

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Howard Fischer (1947–2024). Three persons bearing the name Mauriac are remembered to have achieved a place of distinction in French literature and medicine. The most famous of these was François Charles Mauriac1 (1885–1970), “a French… Read more

  • The tenuous gut-brain axis and its role in schizophrenia

    When the son of the American surgeon Bayard Holmes developed schizophrenia, Holmes devoted his life to researching the disease. In 1916, impressed by the new germ theory that stated many diseases were caused by an overgrowth of bacteria, he tried to cure his son by… Read more

  • St. John’s wort: Repelling witches and treating depression

    Even the most devout Christian might be excused for not taking off time from his work or pleasures to celebrate on June 25 the birthday (not the gruesome beheading) of St. John the Baptist. This is also the day of the summer solstice (the longest… Read more