Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: San Francisco

  • Pursuing Hualapai tigers in the Mule Mountains

    Stephen A. KlotzJustin O. SchmidtTucson, Arizona, United States Every Monday afternoon after returning to my office from infectious disease clinic, I would find pickle jars and yogurt containers on my desk. Upon removing the lids and peering in, I saw crawling over one another the largest kissing bugs in the United States. There was always…

  • Jack London’s cloudy crystal ball

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States The COVID-19 pandemic has given quarantined readers new opportunities to discover the literature of plagues and epidemics. Many people—in order to give context to the present pandemic—have turned to books like Albert Camus’ classic novel The Plague, Daniel DeFoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Steven King’s The Stand,…

  • Plagues and prejudice

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, missionaries, and deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles; the overthrow of…

  • Dr. Avery, Medicine Woman

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode, Island, United States In July 1878, astronomers headed into the American West to observe a total eclipse of the sun. Among them was America’s only woman astronomer, Maria Mitchell of Vassar College, and four of her former astronomy students. Lacking the federal support and discounted railroad tickets of her male colleagues, Mitchell…

  • A case of toxic blood

    Shruthi DeivasigamaniPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a blustery winter day, a molecule of water condenses around a particle of dust in the air. The structure grows in size as it falls closer to earth, and before it hits the ground outside, it has crystallized into a perfect, six-sided snowflake. Miles away, a thirty-one-year-old woman is…

  • A love-driven model of suicide prevention

    Kate BaggottSt. Catharines, Ontario, Canada The suicide barrier on the Bloor Street Viaduct in Toronto is called the Luminous Veil. The beauty of the title is that it is intentional and intelligent. Construction of the barrier started in 2003 after more than a decade of advocacy. It was installed just a few years after the…