Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Rhinoplasty

  • Sushruta, the father of rhinoplasty

    Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States From around 1000–800 BC, a golden age of medicine dawned in ancient India, where ayurveda, the “science of life,” flourished.1 At the heart of this revolution was the legendary physician Sushruta, whose writings in the famous Samhita describe surgeries from cataract removal to treatment of bladder stones, diseases including diabetes…

  • History of medicine in ancient India

    Keerthana KallaSeattle, Washington, United States The chronicle of medicine is the story of man’s struggle against illness. As early as 5000 BC, India developed a comprehensive form of healing called Ayurveda. Such traditional healing was first recorded between 4500 and 1600 BC. It is believed that sages were the early practitioners of Ayurveda around 2500…

  • The hectic life of Leonardo Fioravanti

    The first part of Leonardo Fioravanti’s life was uneventful; the second was tumultuous.1 Born in Bologna in 1517,1-4 he was fortunate in 1527 to survive a violent epidemic that may have been typhus. At age sixteen he began to study medicine, probably as an indentured apprentice to a barber-surgeon. At twenty-two he began practicing medicine…

  • Ethics, feminism, and cosmetic surgery

    Unaiza WaheedLondon In Reshaping the Female Body, Kathy Davis expresses surprise when a feminist friend announces she is considering breast augmentation surgery: “[She] was very critical of the sufferings women have to endure because their bodies do not meet the normative requirements of feminine beauty,” yet she still felt pressure to seek cosmetic surgery for…

  • The times of Gaspare Tagliacozzi, founder of plastic surgery

    In his essay on Giovanni Battista Cortesi, recently reviewed in this Journal, Dr. Paolo Savoia refers to other surgeons who achieved prominence in sixteenth-century Italy. In medicine, as in the arts, progress had been abetted by an influx of Greek scholars from Byzantium after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. In Western Europe,…

  • Rhinoplasty and the roosari from ancient Persia to modern day Iran

    Ryan CohenBoston, Massachusetts, United States “Roosari” is the Farsi term used for a head-covering. The famed Iranian veil is the most conspicuous feature of a modern Iranian woman’s ensemble. Yet, wearing the roosari was not always the norm. Only one generation ago, the country had banned this staple of Iranian wardrobe in the name of…