Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Spanish-American War

  • Las Animas: A Cuban yellow fever hospital

    Enrique Chaves-CarballoKansas City, Kansas, United StatesDavid SchwartzAtlanta, Georgia, United States John Hay, U.S. Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt, described the Spanish-American War as “a splendid little war” because it was brief and resulted in relatively few casualties.1 The Treaty of Paris, formally signed on December 10, 1898, ended Spanish occupation of Cuba and established…

  • George Crile Sr., founder of the Cleveland Clinic

    Early days George Crile was an exceptional man, a skilled surgeon who lived at a time when American medicine was emerging from its horse and buggy period and was embracing the principles of aseptic surgery and scientific medicine. Always full of new ideas, he was first to carry out a human-to-human blood transfusion. He made…

  • The other Timothy Leary

    Saty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United States Most people know the name of Timothy Leary as an American counterculture guru and psychologist who had a massive following in the mid-twentieth century. He invoked the names of Gandhi, Jesus, and Socrates as his martyred models; was associated with Aldous Huxley, John Lennon, and Jack Kerouac; and fissioned…

  • Harvey Cushing: Surgeon, Author, Soldier, Historian 1869-1939

    John RaffenspergerFort Meyers, Florida, United States Harvey Cushing was a third-generation physician, born to a family of New England Puritans who had migrated to Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid 1830s. His father and grandfather were successful physicians; family members on both sides were well-educated and financially secure. At Yale, Cushing studied Latin, Greek, literature, and…

  • African American contract doctors in the military

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States In the spring of 1898, the United States rushed into a war with Spain but lacked adequate troops, training, weapons, transport, supplies, food, landing craft, and medical personnel. One deficit that could be corrected before the shooting started was the lack of doctors. George Sternberg, the Army Surgeon General,…

  • How conflict and bureaucracy delayed the elimination of yellow fever

    Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States The Golden Age of Bacteriology (1876–1906) saw the emergence of techniques to cultivate bacterial pathogens and develop vaccines and anti-toxin therapies against them. The new bacteriologists rapidly identified the agents causing anthrax, gonorrhea, typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera, tetanus, diphtheria, plague, and other infectious diseases. One microbe that remained stubbornly elusive…

  • Theme

    HONORING THE WORK OF THE RED CROSS Published on May, 2020 H E K T O R A M A     .   ALL BLOOD RUNS RED Clara Barton The American Red Cross (ARC) is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other disasters. Based on…