Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: St Bartholomew’s Hospital

  • What’s in a name?

    Aaroh Dubey London, England   St. Bart’s quadrangle fountain. Photo by author. “What’s in a name?” Juliet asks the audience in Act 2 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. The play laments the folly of holding onto the past and giving undue meaning to names and titles.1 Outside of Shakespeare, however, things are rarely as…

  • The Royal Society of Medicine of London: A brief history

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The origins of the Royal Society of Medicine in London can be traced back to 1805. It was in that year that a breakaway group of learned physicians and surgeons formed a new medical society, the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. They met first in Gray’s Inn, the legal area…

  • Book review: John Hughlings Jackson: Clinical Neurology, Evolution and Victorian Brain Science

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of John Hughlings Jackson: Clinical Neurology, Evolution and Victorian Brain Science by Samuel H. Greenblatt. Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN 9780192897640. John Hughlings Jackson is often considered to be the father of clinical neurology, although his contemporary in France, Jean-Martin Charcot, could also justifiably lay claim to…

  • Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   Fig 1. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Credit: Walery, published by Sampson Low & Co. in February 1889. Via Wikimedia. Elizabeth Blackwell and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson were the first women physicians in the United States and Britain.1 Both were born in England. Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-I9I0) was born in Bristol but…

  • William Halse Rivers Rivers

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Figure 1 WHR Rivers in public domain, from Wikimedia William Rivers MD FRCP FRS (1864-1922) William Rivers (Fig 1) was a most unusual man, a polymath with careers in neuroscience, ethnology, and psychology. But above all—notwithstanding or perhaps because of personal nervous constraints—he was a man of originality and great…

  • Multiple sclerosis: Early descriptions

    JMS Pearce  Hull, England Clinical MS: Augustus D’Este, McKenzie Fig 1. MS plaques, by Robert Carswell. Source It was almost two centuries ago that the best known and possibly the first detailed patient’s description of multiple sclerosis (MS) was recorded. It survives in the diaries (1822-48) and almanac of Sir Augustus D’Este, the Harrovian grandson…

  • John Hunter, Harvey Cushing, and acromegaly

    Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States   Figure 1. Charles Byrne, a giant, George Cranstoun, a dwarf, and three other normal sized men. Etching by J. Kay, 1794. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Introduction John Hunter and Harvey Cushing were two of the most preeminent surgeons of their eras. John Hunter is considered…

  • Howard H. Tooth CB., CMG., MD., FRCP.

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. Howard H Tooth. Via Wikimedia  Howard Tooth (1856-1925) was one of many physicians who served well their patients and their profession, but who would be unknown save for a syndrome that bears and perpetuates their name. Howard Tooth (Fig 1) was born in Hove, Sussex, educated at Rugby…

  • Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes

    JMS Pearce East Yorks, UK   Fig 1.  Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes. Reproduction after a pencil drawing by G. Shaw, 1957. Credit: Wellcome Collection.  (CC BY 4.0) Mention the name Keynes in Britain and most people think of the Buckinghamshire town Milton Keynes or the celebrated twentieth-century economist John Maynard Keynes. In the thirteenth century…

  • Neville Samuel Finzi—British radiotherapy pioneer

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Neville Samuel Finzi was born on June 25, 1881.1 He was the son of Gerald Finzi’s uncle, Leon, who was also a doctor. Gerald Finzi was a British composer famous for his song cycles, choral music, and reflective instrumental and orchestral works including a violin and cello concerto. Neville attended University…