Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Saint Elisabeth of Hungary

  • The three main rivers of Africa and their main diseases

    It is perhaps worth adding to one’s stock of knowledge that the Nile, at 4,132 miles, is the longest river in the world, followed by the Amazon (3,980 mi), the Yangtze (3,915 mi), and the Mississippi-Missouri (3,902 mi). The Nile is formed by two segments… Read more

  • The donkey in culture, science, and medicine

    The donkey (Equus asinus), though often overshadowed by the horse, has played an essential role in the development of civilizations for roughly six thousand years. Descended from an earlier ancestor, the African wild ass, which likely originated from the Horn of Africa, it has been… Read more

  • Getting drunk without drinking: When the body produces its own alcohol

    Fadime PalaScottsdale, Arizona Imagine getting drunk without drinking a single drop of alcohol. Even for a moment, it sounds strange, doesn’t it? Yet hidden within the fascinating world of medicine is a real condition called auto-brewery syndrome, a disorder that causes the body to produce alcohol… Read more

  • Contrast allergy in question

    David GreenChicago, Illinois, United States An infusion of iodinated contrast medium enhances the images of organs and tissues depicted by radiographic studies, and such infusions are routinely included in most of these examinations. While generally well tolerated, allergic reactions to the infusates do occur and… Read more

  • Ultra-processed foods: Pros and cons

    Ashutosh GuptaChicago, Illinois, United States Processed foods are raw agricultural commodities that have been altered from their original natural state through any of these methods: washing, cutting, heating, cooking, milling, pasteurizing, canning, freezing, dehydrating, or packaging. These foods have added nutrients and ingredients for preservation,… Read more

  • Touch wood

    Loshini RajentharanLiverpool, United Kingdom When I was a house officer in a tertiary hospital in northern Malaysia during my four-month orthopedic rotation, I witnessed something that changed the way I viewed a particular aspect of medicine. Superstitions. I have always loved the color black. Even… Read more

  • The clinician who taught us to see: Remembering Prof. Kolitha Harischandra Sellahewa

    Shane HalpeMoratuwa, Sri Lanka Professor Kolitha Harischandra Sellahewa entered my life in 2015 during my final-year professorial appointment in medicine at the Neville Fernando Teaching Hospital in Sri Lanka. Students spoke of him with a mixture of awe and fear: he was said to be… Read more

  • Věc Makropulos and the ownership of immortality

    David HoganCalgary, Alberta, Canada Karel Čapek (1890–1938) was an eminent Czech author, playwright, and journalist active during the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938).1 The son of a physician, Čapek suffered from ankylosing spondylitis (during the 1930s it was known as Čapek’s disease in Prague).2 This excused… Read more

  • “Neurasthenia” and the concealment of Woodrow Wilson’s strokes

    Joseph LockhartSaty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United States The history of neurasthenia up to 1919 Physician George Beard (1839–1883) introduced the term neurasthenia1 as a popular construct to the United States, publishing his book American Nervousness in 1881.2 The disorder was seen as a peculiarly American illness,… Read more

  • Mount Kilimanjaro: Geography, history, and medical significance

    Mount Kilimanjaro is located 330 kilometers south of the equator in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border, rising to 5,895 meters (~19,341 feet) above sea level. It stands alone and is not part of a mountain range, which makes it the tallest mountain on Earth.… Read more

  • Assassins changed the fate of nations

    The assassination of a single prominent person has often changed the fate of nations. Throughout history, rulers of all kinds—kings, emperors, and presidents—as well as reformers and revolutionaries, have fallen prey to the weapons of assassins, sometimes marking the end of an era or the… Read more

  • “The hunchback”: Literary and historical perspectives

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel In the Bible, we read that “a man with physical deformities or ailments, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles” (Leviticus, 21:20) was not… Read more