Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

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

  • Ignaz Troxler (1780–1866): Swiss polymath, physician, philosopher, pedagogue and politician

    Jonathan DavidsonDurham, North Carolina, United States Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler (1780–1866) was an influential figure in Swiss medicine, philosophy, education, and politics, yet is scarcely mentioned in the English-speaking world. Even in Switzerland, this controversial and outspoken individual remains neglected. Brief Biographical Sketch and Events… Read more

  • Noma: The disfiguring, devouring disease

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Maladie dévoreuse de beauté et de vie”1(“An illness devouring both beauty and life”)– Edmond Kaiser, founder of the humanitarian organization Fondation Sentinelle Noma (also called necrotizing ulcerative stomatitis, gangrenous stomatitis, or cancrum oris), is a disease of extreme poverty. It progresses rapidly… Read more

  • Biblical leprosy: A dermatologist’s perspective

    Harry GoldinSkokie, Illinois, United States The descriptions of “leprosy” in chapter 13 of the Book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible are complex and difficult to understand. This confusion has led to misleading modern English translations of biblical “leprosy” such as “malignant,”1 “contagious,”2 and “virulent”3… Read more

  • Did Scythian men feminize themselves by drinking mare’s urine?

    Andrew WilliamsLeicester, United Kingdom The Enarees were nomadic Scythian soothsayers who lived within the areas bounded by the rivers Danube, Bug, Don, and Dnieper, and who Herodotus in the 5th century AD asserted were effeminate.1,2 Unfortunately the Scythians did not leave any written records. Hippocrates’… Read more

  • Sanitariums as cure for consumption

    The institutions variously called sanitariums (from sanare, “to cure”) or sanitariums (from sanitas, meaning “health”) became all the rage around 1850. They were especially popular with the upper classes, as exemplified in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain by the young Hans Castorp, who decides to… Read more

  • The gift of the Medici

    Credit for the present status of Florence as a jewel of European art and culture is rarely given to where it is due. Accounts of its history are replete with descriptions of the founder of the Medici’s wealth, Giovanni de’ Bicci; the exploits of Cosimo,… Read more

  • Theophile Bonet, physician and anatomist of Geneva

    Theophile Bonet was a scholar and physician remembered for his extensive writings on anatomy, pathology, and clinical medicine. A successful medical practitioner for over forty years, he was familiar with both ancient and modern literature, and he published extensive notes of his studies and observations.… Read more

  • Hanaoka Seishū, inventor of an early general anesthetic

    Kingston BridgesLondon, United Kingdom Since time immemorial, humans have sought to alleviate illness and suffering through surgical interventions. Amputations with improvised tools took place in the Upper Paleolithic period over 30,000 years ago, and skeletal evidence of trephining has been found in excavations on several… Read more

  • Vegetarians, vegans, and compassionate eating

    Our ancestors, who lived swinging from limb to limb in the trees, ate nuts and berries and killed animals to eat them. With the development of agriculture and civilization, some people developed pangs of conscience and felt that animals also have an unalienable right to… Read more

  • Poison at the dinner table

    Putting poison in food has long been an expeditious way of disposing of one’s enemies. The many poisons traditionally available for this purpose include hemlock, aconitum, arsenic, cyanide, belladonna, and strychnine. Using food tasters to avoid such an undesired outcome was once a reasonably effective… Read more

  • Pica: Eating starch and clay

    The habit of eating non-nutritious or nonfood substances goes by the name of pica and strikes one as a rather peculiar phenomenon. It applies most commonly to people consuming starch or clay, but at different times and in different areas people have also eaten paper,… Read more

  • Art, anhedonia, and family psychodynamics in the creativity of Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Stephen MartinThailand There are interesting questions about how the mental phenomenology of the great writer Nathaniel Hawthorne1 drove his work. His supreme narrative gift and engaging observation were shadowed by anhedonia, which is a complete or partial lack of the ability to experience pleasure and… Read more