Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The King’s-Evil and sensory experience in Richard Wiseman’s Severall Chirurgicall Treatises

  • The Celts, early inhabitants of Europe

    The Celts, a collection of Indo-European tribes, shared common linguistic and cultural traditions. They controlled extensive territories across Europe from 1200 BCE to 400 CE, spanning from Ireland and Scotland to Anatolia and from the Netherlands to Spain and Italy. Greek and Roman observers frequently wrote about the… Read more

  • The Trinity Plague Column in Budapest

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England In the Buda Castle district of the city of Budapest, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, there is an elegant square in front of the famous centuries-old Matthias Church with its imposing Gothic spire. This site was a mosque during the Ottoman invasion… Read more

  • The early death of Alfonso XII

    Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain ¿Dónde vas Alfonso XII?¿Dónde vas triste de ti?Voy en busca de MercedesQue ayer tarde no la vi. Where are you going, Alfonso XII?Where are you going so blue?I am looking for MercedesYesterday I did not see her. —Popular Spanish song King Alfonso… Read more

  • Sir Edward Elgar, pioneer of English music

    Sir Edward Elgar raised English music to prominence at a time when it was dominated by continental composers. Renowned for his The Dream of Gerontius oratorio (1900), Enigma Variations (1899), the Pomp and Circumstance marches (1901–1930), a Violin Concerto (1910), a Cello Concerto (1919), two… Read more

  • Dr. David Hosack, physician to Alexander Hamilton

    In the early 1800s, when Napoleon had established his hegemony over most of Europe but was utterly ignored by Jane Austen in her novels, barber-surgeons took care of most of the bodily needs of their clients. They shaved their beards, pulled their teeth, drew their… Read more

  • Medicine’s “Naming of the Parts”: Less instrumentalism and more aesthetics?

    Alan BleakleyPlymouth, United Kingdom The English poet Henry Reed first published “Naming of the Parts” in 1942. English schoolchildren of my generation, born soon after WWII, learned this poem by heart. But we were too young to know, and perhaps our English teachers failed to… Read more

  • A hole in the head and a world of skill

    Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia In the dim confines of a ship’s sickbay during the golden age of piracy, the sound of waves might have been interrupted by the rasp and twist of a surgical drill biting into bone. Trepanning—the act of boring into the skull… Read more

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

    Ralph Vaughan Williams is regarded as one of the most influential and beloved English musical composers, active at a time when his country’s music was heavily influenced by German and French traditions. He was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, into a well-connected and intellectual family.… Read more

  • Antonín Dvořák of the New World Symphony

    Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904), the celebrated musical composer, brilliantly combined Czech folk traditions with sophisticated Western classical music. Born in the small village of Nelahozeves near Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, he was the son of an innkeeper and butcher who also played… Read more

  • Man is a waiting animal

    If you require a visa for a certain country, you should arrive at the consulate early in the morning to beat the crowd. You are told to take a number and wait in a crowded room for up to one hour before being called. You… Read more

  • Dr. Arnold Kadish: Insulin pump inventor and “Diabetes Dad”

    Paige EdmistonSeattle, Washington, United States A black-and-white photograph of a man covered in tubing and wearing an unwieldy backpack-sized device (Figure 1) beamed from the screen at the front of the classroom. The nurse leading the diabetes education class walked from the podium to a… Read more

  • Spontaneous regression of cancer

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Unexplainable events have always intrigued people. At the top of this list of the uncommon and perplexing is spontaneous cure or regression of cancer. A cure requires that the lesion disappear completely, never to return, letting the person live for… Read more