Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: rheumatism

  • Robert Bentley Todd

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Students of King’s College Hospital London are familiar with the Todd Prize in Clinical Medicine and with Todd Ward. Robert Bentley Todd’s father, Charles Hawkes Todd, was a well-known surgeon of 3 Kildare Street Dublin. His mother was Elizabeth Bentley, a relative of the poet Oliver Goldsmith, who was himself…

  • Gouty quotes

    JMS Pearce Hull, England The recent reproduction of G. Cruikshank’s A self-indulgent man afflicted with gout by a demon burning his foot reminded me of many memorable remarks made by sages of various disciplines (several themselves victims of gout) on the subject. That the excruciating pain of gout (Figs 1 and 2) provokes mirth and ribald…

  • Rheumatic fever: Evolution of causal concepts and management

    Amogh BJTrivandrum, Kerala, India Nanditha VenkatesanRaipur, Chhattisgarh, India For centuries rheumatic fever (RF) and its sequelae scourged the lives of millions of people. Despite a substantial decline in deaths from the disease, rheumatic heart disease remains a problem, especially in areas of poverty. Over the past few centuries, a growing understanding of its causation and…

  • It is good to be the king: The French surgical revolution

    Julius BonelloAyesha HasanPeoria, Illinois, United States A belief held by the common people is that it is good to be royalty, a sentiment supported by descriptions in novels and depictions in movies. The best food, the finest clothes, and the most extravagant and opulent dwelling in the kingdom belonged to the king to use at…

  • The gout of the Medici

    Florence in the fifteenth century was one of the most important cities in Western Europe. Rich and resplendent, first in banking and in the wool trade, it even issued its own currency, the golden florin, widely used throughout Europe. For some three hundred years the city was ruled almost continuously by the Medici, at one…