Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Richard Mead

  • The Foundling Hospital and Dr. Richard Mead

    JMS PearceHull, England [Mead] physician who lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man– Dr. Samuel Johnson (Boswell’s Johnson IV. 222) The Foundling Hospital in Lamb’s Conduit Field in Bloomsbury (Fig 1) was established in 1739 to provide a safe home for children orphaned or abandoned, usually because of parental poverty.1 The…

  • The Gold-Headed Cane revisited

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Over many centuries there have been several icons symbolic of medical practice. Typical is the single serpent, the Aesculapian wand — a “totem of Medicine”— seen in the constellation Ophiochus (the serpent holder). Serpents in ancient cultures represented fertility, rebirth, and strength. The Aesculapian wand is often confused with the two…