Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The psychological impact of facial injury in the First World War: outcomes from the Queen’s Hospital Sidcup

  • The gift of the Medici

    Credit for the present status of Florence as a jewel of European art and culture is rarely given to where it is due. Accounts of its history are replete with descriptions of the founder of the Medici’s wealth, Giovanni de’ Bicci; the exploits of Cosimo,… Read more

  • Theophile Bonet, physician and anatomist of Geneva

    Theophile Bonet was a scholar and physician remembered for his extensive writings on anatomy, pathology, and clinical medicine. A successful medical practitioner for over forty years, he was familiar with both ancient and modern literature, and he published extensive notes of his studies and observations.… Read more

  • Hanaoka Seishū, inventor of an early general anesthetic

    Kingston BridgesLondon, United Kingdom Since time immemorial, humans have sought to alleviate illness and suffering through surgical interventions. Amputations with improvised tools took place in the Upper Paleolithic period over 30,000 years ago, and skeletal evidence of trephining has been found in excavations on several… Read more

  • Vegetarians, vegans, and compassionate eating

    Our ancestors, who lived swinging from limb to limb in the trees, ate nuts and berries and killed animals to eat them. With the development of agriculture and civilization, some people developed pangs of conscience and felt that animals also have an unalienable right to… Read more

  • Poison at the dinner table

    Putting poison in food has long been an expeditious way of disposing of one’s enemies. The many poisons traditionally available for this purpose include hemlock, aconitum, arsenic, cyanide, belladonna, and strychnine. Using food tasters to avoid such an undesired outcome was once a reasonably effective… Read more

  • Pica: Eating starch and clay

    The habit of eating non-nutritious or nonfood substances goes by the name of pica and strikes one as a rather peculiar phenomenon. It applies most commonly to people consuming starch or clay, but at different times and in different areas people have also eaten paper,… Read more

  • Art, anhedonia, and family psychodynamics in the creativity of Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Stephen MartinThailand There are interesting questions about how the mental phenomenology of the great writer Nathaniel Hawthorne1 drove his work. His supreme narrative gift and engaging observation were shadowed by anhedonia, which is a complete or partial lack of the ability to experience pleasure and… Read more

  • The history of apples is the history of mankind

    The apple has been intertwined with human civilization for thousands of years. References to apples can be found in history, literature, religion, and folklore. The wild ancestor of the modern apple tree, Malus sieversii, originated in Central Asia and was domesticated some 4,000 years ago… Read more

  • A tale of two physicians and Albert Göring

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Hermann Epenstein Ritter von Mauternburg (1850–1934) was a physician and merchant who played a significant role in the lives of anti-Nazi activist Albert Göring and his family. He was their family doctor, a close friend, and godfather to Albert and his… Read more

  • A trip to the museum

    Sam WoodworthPortland, Maine I recently had the opportunity to visit the Frick Collection in New York City and was delighted to see Portrait of Comtesse d’Haussonville, a beautiful painting by the nineteenth-century French neoclassical artist, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. The subject of the painting, Louise… Read more

  • The death of Socrates and common hemlock

    Umut AkovaAnkara, Turkey Socrates (469–399 BC) was the ancient Greek philosopher most often credited with pioneering Western philosophy and with founding the Socratic method, a dialectical approach to questioning and critical thinking. Known for his pursuit of ethical truths and moral principles, he engaged individuals… Read more

  • The resident doctors’ strike: Montreal, 1934

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “We don’t want him because he’s a Jew. But we are not antisemites.”1—From a statement by striking residents at Hôpital Notre-Dame, Montreal Samuel Rabinovitch, M.D., (1909–2010) graduated first in his class from the Faculté de Médecine of the University of Montreal in… Read more