Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

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

  • Picasso’s Blue Period and depression

    Mary Ellen KellyDublin, Ireland Depression is one of the most common mental disorders globally. The mental illness affects millions and is responsible for an estimated 850,000 deaths per year.1 Depression rates among medical professionals are extremely high,2 and those suffering from depression often find it… Read more

  • The power of singing in Alzheimer’s patients

    May LysterDublin, Ireland Throughout the gradual decline of one’s memory and behavior, the ever-changing world can become difficult to understand and comprehend. Around the world, approximately 24 million people currently have Alzheimer’s disease. However, the number of friends and family indirectly affected by this degenerative… Read more

  • The two Kandinskys

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian painter, art theorist, co-founder of the “Blue Rider” art movement, pioneer of abstract painting,1 and part of the Fauvism and Bauhaus of Weimar movements. Neuroscientists regard him “as one of the most prominent examples of a… Read more

  • Additional French surgeons

    By the close of the fourteenth century, France emerged as the preeminent center of European surgical practice. Its early pioneers included Theodoric Borgognoni of Lucca (1205–1296), who played a pivotal role in elevating surgery from a craft to a respected medical discipline; Guido Lanfranc of… Read more

  • The big little

    Elizabeth CrowstonCavalier, North Dakota, United States In the quiet cradle of the self, where thoughts doth swell and dip,A realm where tiny whispers in the vastness grip,As streams that trickle, gather, and in rivers flow,So doth the inner consciousness within us grow. Amidst the woodland’s… Read more

  • How times change: Advice to a temp worker, 1968

    Laura Celise Lippman Seattle, Washington, United States Because you’re only a temp worker,be sure to look busy. Keep your deskneat, but not too tidy. He will checkon you regularly, peering from hisoffice to your desk. Make surehe hears your typewriter clacking onand off throughout the day,… Read more

  • Codpiece evolution: From function to fantasy

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Pretty personal palaces for penises”– Zaria Gorvett, in Smithsonian A codpiece (from Middle English cod, meaning bag or scrotum) was a triangular piece of cloth covering the male genitals, held in place by buttons or ties that attached to the man’s hosiery.… Read more

  • A foul “sailor’s mouth” of a different kind

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia Johnny Depp seems to have taken his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean quite literally. His appearance at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival unleashed a minor scandal as fans’ complaints about his supposedly “rotting… Read more

  • Liver, lime, and vitamins

    The history of vitamins traces back to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, who observed that certain foods were important in maintaining health. These observations were later supplemented by clinical studies. Among these studies were those of the Russian physician Nikolai Lunin. As a student… Read more

  • Surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, and pain

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Pain caused by surgical interventions is incorrectly considered an unimportant, self-limiting inconvenience. “Let them scream—it is a relief of nature,” said Benjamin Winslow Dudley, a professor of anatomy, surgery and medicine at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky from 1817 to 1850.… Read more

  • Morris Blechstein steps away

    Eli Daniel EhrenpreisSkokie, Illinois, United States Of course, it was always assumed Morris Blechstein would take his final breaths sitting in his office, surrounded by scientific papers, studying his favorite medical literature to the end. But Morris made a surprise announcement. He was leaving because… Read more

  • Martinus Beijerinck: A co-discoverer of viruses

    Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States As early as 1676, Dutch textile worker Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek, working with an early microscope, was the first to identify bacteria. Because of the size of bacteria, easily seen by a microscope, it was inevitable that bacteria would be discovered… Read more