Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Solitude

  • The loneliness of the long-living doctor

    Peter Arnold Sydney, Australia   Study of the head of an old man. Peter Paul Rubens. between 1610 and 1615. Kunsthistorisches Museum. Via Wikimedia. A noticeable phenomenon of the twenty-first century is the increasing frequency of friendships between older men. The importance of such friendships to both mental and physical health has been well documented.1,2,3…

  • Book review: John Keats’ Medical Notebook

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for…

  • Solitude

    Donna PuccianiWheaton, Illinois, United States You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley . . . —American Folk Song We learn to be alonefor months when microscopicmurder floats in the airlike so much smoke. We learn to fearthe passing strangerwhose only misdeedis walking two large dogson our shared sidewalk,their communal breathexploding in lethal stardust. We learn…