Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Summer 2009

  • Marc Chagall brings a message of hope and faith to the disabled

    Rachel C. Baker Chicago, Illinois, USA   Rehabilitating the disabled requires not only physicians, nurses, therapists, psychologists, social workers, and speech pathologists, but also aesthetically appealing surroundings. According to visionary Henry B. Betts, MD, former President of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), We do this by surrounding each disabled person with people and an…

  • Blades of the mill: a man battling with cancer

    Barb Schwarz Karst Robert Schwarz   Cancer   THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT “The doctor said it might be lymphoma,” I told his nurse after he had left the room and my temperature had gone from normal happy being to the sweat of a man facing a firing squad in seconds. “So,” she casually said. “So!”…

  • Artist statement – “Blades of the mill: a man battling with cancer” by Barb Schwarz Karst

    Barb Schwarz Karst   “Blades of the Mill” is a series of eighteen mixed media paintings representing my brother Bob, four months into his eight-month treatment for cancer. Each of the eighteen paintings contains an image of Bob and a line of poetry that signifies a major turning point in his life. When combining all…

  • Anatomical ghosts in The Merchant of Venice

    Mauro Spicci   Antonio and the dangers of self-diagnosis In the last few years the steadily growing number of attempts to read Shakespeare’s plays from a medical perspective has been justified by the idea that they are not simply the immortal fruits of a genius, but also documents reflecting the historical, cultural, and social background…