Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Solihull

  • Book review: Casanova’s Guide to Medicine

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The eighteenth-century Italian Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) is today best remembered for legendary amorous pursuits that resulted in his name becoming a part of the English language. What has been forgotten, however, is that he was a remarkable and erudite polymath. He graduated as a lawyer from the University of Padua…

  • William Sands Cox—Surgeon and founder of the Birmingham Medical School

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In the early nineteenth century Birmingham was the second largest city in England. It was an industrial powerhouse, known as the city of a thousand trades, but it did not have its own medical school. Those wishing to become doctors had to train in London. William Sands Cox was born…

  • Review of Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The lives of people who seem to be endowed with extraordinary abilities have long been a source of fascination. The famous Italian physician, researcher, and founder of the science of criminology, Cesare Lombroso, professed this interest in his 1889 book The Man of Genius, stating that genius was a form…

  • William Marsden, surgeon and founder of the Royal Free and Royal Marsden Hospitals, London

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom To found one hospital is a fairly unusual achievement; to found two is a rare feat indeed. William Marsden, a nineteenth-century British doctor, founded both the Royal Free Hospital and the Royal Cancer Hospital (now known as the Royal Marsden Hospital) in London. William Marsden was born in August 1796 in…

  • Charles Richard Box: physician, pathologist, and infectious disease pioneer

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK The name Charles Richard Box is perhaps not as well-known as some of the medical contemporaries of his time. He had a brilliant career in medicine at his alma mater but his nature and personality did not result in popularity and fame in society circles. As Alex Munthe, the author of…

  • Samuel Solly—distinguished surgeon and educator

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Samuel Solly was born in St. Mary Axe, London, on May 13, 1805. He attended school in Walthamstow, East London, where his contemporaries included the future British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.1 In May 1822 he became an apprentice to Benjamin Travers, a surgeon at St. Thomas’s Hospital.2 For this privilege he…