Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The Kahun Gynecological Papyrus

  • Nigerian history and medical history

    Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, home to nearly 400 ethnic groups and hundreds of languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Hausa, and Edo. One of its early sophisticated societies, the Nok culture, flourished in central Nigeria around 1500 BCE and is famous for its terracotta… Read more

  • Teaching reflective empathy: Helping doctors hear the silent scream

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Communication skills are essential for medical professionals. High-quality care depends not only on accurate diagnosis but also on recognizing how illness is experienced and communicated. Much of a patient’s suffering is expressed nonverbally. Clinicians therefore need to develop the ability… Read more

  • Otto Lanz: Surgeon, art collector, humanist

    Robert HageGrenada In the long tradition of physician-humanists, few figures are as quietly compelling as Otto Lanz (1865–1935), a Swiss surgeon whose life unfolded not only in the operating theater but also among Renaissance paintings, antiquities, literature, and poetry. Although remembered primarily for the transverse… Read more

  • Amber: A versatile component of the early modern materia medica

    Christopher DuffinLondon, England Amber is an organic mineraloid made from fossilized plant resin. Forty-four-million-year-old amber from the Baltic region, particularly the Samland Peninsula in the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast, effectively supplied the pharmaceutical demands of western Europe. Mined since Paleolithic times, its distinctive… Read more

  • Saint Antipas: An ecclesiastical figure associated with toothache relief

    Eleni BarlaGregory TsoucalasHeraklion, Greece Saint Apollonia, a virgin martyr, is popularly regarded as the patron saint of dentistry and of those suffering from toothache. However, Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum, represents another important Christian figure closely associated with the history of dentistry and the relief… Read more

  • The symptoms that PTSD left behind

    Walter PaganinRome, Italy At Marathon in 490 BCE, according to Herodotus, an Athenian soldier named Epizelus was fighting bravely when he suddenly lost sight in both eyes, though no weapon had touched him.1 He remained blind for the rest of his life. He described having… Read more

  • The antimonial cup

    Christopher DuffinLondon, England Antimony (Sb) occurs most commonly in the form of the antimony trisulfide mineral stibnite and has enjoyed a long history of medical use.1 In the fourth century BCE, Hippocrates used it as a sudorific (sweat inducer) and cordial (strengthener) in cases of… Read more

  • Distant echoes of Neanderthal health

    George ChristopherMichigan, United States Genetic sequencing, analysis of skeletal remains, and archeological studies of habitats may elucidate health challenges faced by the Neanderthals, their biological and cultural adaptations, and how their health impacts us today. Origin, anatomy, and culture The ancestral lineages of Neanderthals (Homo… Read more

  • A painted pharmacy preserved in time: Saint John’s Hospital through van Bree’s eyes

    Vicent Rodilla Joanne CahillSpain During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, European pharmacy stood at a crossroads between traditional apothecary practice and the emerging scientific foundations of modern pharmaceutical science. Medicines were still prepared largely by hand from plants, minerals, and animal-derived substances, even… Read more

  • Fossilized fish teeth as historical medicines

    Christopher DuffinLondon, United Kingdom Herbal and zoological materials have a rich and intensely studied history as medicinal simples dating from classical times. However geological materials, especially fossils, have received little attention in the literature. Although relatively minor components of the apothecary’s arsenal against disease, they… Read more

  • The internalized verdict: Kafka, singlism, and the social architecture of shame

    Scarlett SaittaJonesboro, Arkansas, United States Franz Kafka firmly believed that much of his writing was unworthy, and asked that it be burned after his death. He did not describe this conviction as spontaneous or mysterious. In writing about his father, Kafka traced it to growing… Read more

  • The manifestations of psychological trauma in Virgil’s Aeneid

    Adnan YaqubChelmsford, United Kingdom In the epic poem the Aeneid, Virgil details the journey of the Trojan hero Aeneas to Italy. Beyond descriptions of battlefield violence, the poem explores the emotional suffering of the warriors and of their families, friends, allies, and enemies. Modern psychology… Read more