Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Spanish Civil War

  • Comments on Dr. James Franklin’s article on George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War

    Stuart Poticha Chicago, Illinois, United States   In 1966 as a young surgeon who had just completed his residency, I was drafted into the United States Army. Following basic training at Fort Sam Houston, I was sent to Vietnam, where I became the Chief of Surgery of the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi. The…

  • When the FBI investigated William Carlos Williams

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “And my ‘medicine’ was the thing that gained me entrance to…[the] secret garden of the self…I was permitted by my medical badge to follow the poor, defeated body onto those gulfs and grottos[sic].”1— William Carlos Williams, M.D. William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963), poet and physician, was born in Rutherford, New Jersey,…

  • Did Ernest Hemingway have the Celtic curse?

    Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1954. GPA Photo Archive. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0 Considering Ernest Hemingway’s mishaps before he died in 1961 by a self-inflicted shotgun wound, it is surprising that he lived so long. He survived two plane crashes several days apart that left…

  • George Orwell and the Spanish Civil War: A brush with death

    James Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Picture of George Orwell, which appears in an old accreditation for the BNUJ. Internet Archive. Via Wikimedia. Robert Capa’s “The Fallen Soldier” is the iconic photograph of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The original title was “Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Carro Muriano, September 5, 1936.”…

  • Blood’s journey: From lab technology to industrial technology

    Cristina Sans-PonsetiBarcelona, Spain Nowadays, it is usual to see donation centers storing blood worldwide. Blood banks meet the demand for blood in order to perform transfusions and produce plasma-based products.1 The use of blood in industrial processes resulted from historical and social contingencies. Our knowledge of the human body, including blood, has changed substantially, along…

  • The history and significance of voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation

    Hans Erik HeierOslo, Norway “While we have now begun to understand the cost of everything, we are in danger of losing track of the value of anything” (Ann Oakley and John Ashton, 1993) Volutary, non-remunerated blood donation in catastrophe September 11, 2001: Two passenger airplanes are crashed into the World Trade Towers in New York,…

  • Norman Bethune’s mobile blood transfusions

    Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada Norman Bethune was born in Ontario’s cottage country in 1895 to missionary parents who influenced him to try to improve conditions for mankind. This resulted in his drive to elaborate grandiose plans that were often unrealized. One important exception was a Spanish sojourn that provided him with a unique opportunity as…

  • The Fantus clinic and the blood bank of Chicago

    There was an old four-story building on the campus of Cook County Hospital that had long served as its outpatient department. It had on each floor crowded clinics where patients waited long on hard benches to be seen. It had clinics for high blood pressure, where pills were prescribed, but not necessarily taken; clinics for…

  • Elizabeth Fleischmann-Aschheim

    Rebekah Abramovich New York, United States Fig 1. Fleischmann Examining a patient with a fluoroscope (Camera Craft, June 1901). Courtesy of Palmquist Elizabeth Fleischmann-Aschheim (1865–1905) opened California’s first X-ray photography laboratory in 1896, merely one year after Roentgen’s discovery. Over the course of the next decade, this unlikely figure would become one of the most…