Russia - Hektoen International

Schizophrenia in Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman and Lu Xun’s A Madman’s Diary

October 22, 2020

Janet Ming Guo Atlanta, Georgia, United States Photograph of Lu Xun on 8 October 1936, 11 days before his death, attending the Second Woodcarving Exhibition in Baxianqiao, Shanghai. Photograph taken by Sha Fei. Circa 8 October 1936. Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons. Lu Xun’s 狂人日記 (A Madman’s Diary; 1918)1 was inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s Записки […]

The Quaker and the Jew, an enduring and impactful friendship: Thomas Hodgkin and Moses Montefiore

October 20, 2020

Marshall A. Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States Obelisk over Hodgkin grave site in Jaffa, Israel. Moses Montefiore, on his return to England, purchased a column of Aberdeen granite nine feet tall and had it inscribed with a lengthy tribute to Hodgkin “as a mark of my respect and esteem.” It was transported to […]

The global journey of variolation

September 29, 2020

Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States A human hand with smallpox pustules. Colored etching by W.T. Strutt. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Humanity has eliminated only one infectious disease—smallpox. Smallpox is a very old disease and efforts to prevent it are almost as old. They included a technique called variolation, also […]

Rilke: A poet’s death

June 24, 2020

Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. A portrait of Rilke painted two years after his death by Leonid Pasternak. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Rose, oh reiner widerspruch, lust, Niemandes schlaf zu sein under soviel lidern Rose, o pure contradiction, desire, to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids. – Rainer Maria Rilke, […]

A Cold War Vaccine: Albert Sabin, Russia, and the oral polio vaccine

May 11, 2020

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Albert Sabin (second from left) and Mikhail Chumakov (third from left). Credit: Courtesy Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives, Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, University of Cincinnati Libraries. Fair Use. In the midst of the 2020 Covid–19 pandemic, when […]

Mustard: history of the yellow seed

February 18, 2020

Carol Sherman Chicago, Illinois, United States Figure 1. The Sign from the Mustard Museum. Photo taken by Douglas R. Siefken, August 15th, 2019. Provided for this article. The National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin1 describes itself as having over 5,600 mustards. They originate from all fifty states of the United States and from more […]

Notes from writing a character with a bleeding disorder

January 22, 2020

Nicole Hebdon Buffalo, New York, United States “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” –Ernest Hemingway. Photograph by Suzy Hazelwood. Taken from pexels.com I have read two books that feature characters with bleeding disorders. The first was a used paperback with a neon green and […]

Gilyarovsky and Gannushkin psychiatric hospitals in Moscow

February 24, 2017

Sergei Jargin Moscow, Russia Fig. 1. Gilyarovsky psychiatric hospital in Moscow, founded 1808. The Gilyarovsky and Gannushkin psychiatric hospitals can be discussed together because the latter was founded in 1913 as a branch of the former, becoming a separate institution only in 1931. Both hospitals are located not far from each other, near the […]

Citizen Zinsser: portrait of a Renaissance man

January 30, 2017

Philip R. Liebson In the September 16, 1940 issue of TIME Magazine an intriguing obituary was found: After a patient wait, death came last week to Hans Zinsser, bacteriologist, physician, philosopher, poet, ironist, historian, raconteur. At 61, he died of chronic leukemia, a slow-moving, mysterious disease of the blood for which there is no known […]

Cultural warfare: investigating childbirth practices in Doctor Zhivago

January 27, 2017

Stephanie S. Colello New York, United States Caption: “Stalin’s tenderness to our future children shines!” I was fortunate to spend a year studying the transformation of Russian childbirth practices through the lens of Russian literature—an endeavor that at first glance may seem farfetched. However, I quickly realized that no birth scene is written as […]