Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: tropical diseases

  • Dingler’s Panama tragedy

    Enrique Chaves-CarballoKansas City, Kansas, United States According to David McCullough, author of best-seller The Path Between the Seas, Jules Isidore Dingler “was not impressive-looking…he was short and bald…had small round shoulders, a soft, round face, soft blue eyes, and a drooping, mahogany-colored mustache….The appearance suggested neither initiative nor resolution and the appearance [sic] was deceiving.”1…

  • Darling of Panama

    Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States Samuel Taylor Darling, widely considered as the foremost American tropical parasitologist and pathologist of his time, was born in Harrison, New Jersey on April 6, 1872. He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, graduating in 1903 at the top of his class and…

  • Philadelphia’s plague

    Hayat El BoukariTetouan, Morocco On August 3, 1793, a young French sailor rooming at Richard Denney’s boarding house was desperately ill with a fever.1 As he was a poor foreigner, no one bothered to find out his name. His fever worsening, he died a few days later, as also did eight residents from two houses…