Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Sir Charles Bell

  • François Magendie

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. François Magendie. Via Wikimedia. François Magendie (1783–1855) (Fig 1) was a pioneering French physiologist, pharmacologist, and clinician who carried out a surprisingly wide variety of investigations. His best-remembered works are on the fourth ventricular foramen and the function of spinal nerves. He was born in Bordeaux, son of…

  • A note on medical metaphors

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Cafe au lait patches in NF1. © 1993-2021, University of Washington, Seattle. From GeneReviews. Source. When Winston Churchill memorably referred to his bouts of depression as “black dog,” in two words he painted a picture that embraced feelings, which otherwise would have taken hundreds of words to describe. I have to…

  • Mental illness in art

    JMS PearceHull, England It is often said that creative art is linked to eccentricity, sometimes bordering on madness. Examples abound of great musicians, writers, and artists who at some time in their lives were deranged and often committed to institutions for mental illness. Some ended their lives in suicide. To what extent is art inspired…

  • Classicism and Sir Charles Bell’s Engravings of the Nerves

    Allister NeherMontreal, Quebec, Canada Readers of medical humanities journals have become accustomed to seeing articles on anatomical illustration and its indebtedness to the techniques and conventions of the fine arts. As diverse as connections between these two areas can be, they are often more complicated than we might expect, especially when we examine the circumstances…