Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Two Scottish tales of medical compassion

  • The medspeak language: Modern Johnsonese?

    George ChristopherMichigan, United States Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) was a prominent eighteenth-century writer whose compositions include literary reviews of the works of Shakespeare, Addison, Dryden, Milton, Pope, and other major authors; scathing commentaries on moral and political issues such as the institution of slavery and the… Read more

  • Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832): Medical aspects

    Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) is widely credited with inventing and popularizing the modern historical novel. Born in Edinburgh in 1771, he grew up during the intellectual ferment of the Scottish Enlightenment. At eighteen months, he developed a fever followed by permanent lameness in his right… Read more

  • Virginity now and then

    Virginity is sometimes regarded as an indelicate subject. It is also one of history’s most cultural artifacts, less a biological fact than a social fiction refined over millennia. At its most literal, it means to have never engaged in sexual intercourse. Over time, however, it… Read more

  • Medicine in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

    The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which existed from 1867 until its dissolution in 1918, was one of the most scientifically vibrant states in the world. Its medical culture, centered primarily in Vienna but extending across a sprawling, multiethnic realm, produced some of the most consequential advances in… Read more

  • The paradox of neurology

    Panayiota AntypasLaunceston, Tasmania, Australia Neurologists occupy a liminal zone, oscillating between a fascination with the complexity of the nervous system and an understanding of the devastating impact these diseases have on patients’ lives. During my medical student elective, I became immersed in this duality. Neurology… Read more

  • A wartime disaster that led to a cure in oncology

    Prasad IyerSingapore In the harbor of Bari on the night of December 2, 1943, the German Luftwaffe punctured the Italian coastline with fire and hit the SS John Harvey, a ship secretly carrying two thousand mustard gas bombs. A toxic soup of fuel oil and… Read more

  • The violent death of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s tragic poet

    Alexander Pushkin, the “Sun of Russian Poetry,” is credited with transforming old-fashioned Russian into a rich, modern, and vibrant language. According to Dostoevsky, “Pushkin came to Russia as a new guiding light, a brilliant illumination of our dark ways.” Nikolai Gogol wrote that “To move… Read more

  • The bomb that fizzled

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel The recent death of Paul R. Ehrlich (1932–2026) reminds us of the risks of hubris when prognosticating, ignoring human inventiveness, and promoting authoritarian control of society. Paul Ehrlich won the Swedish Crafoord Prize in 1990 (which is awarded in fields not… Read more

  • Freud, Mesmer, and Charcot in modern literature

    Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland In modern literature, historical psychiatrists and neurologists sometimes appear as fictional characters. A case in point is found in Jed Rubenfeld’s novel The Interpretation of Murder, which opens with Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Sándor Ferenczi arriving in New York in 1909… Read more

  • Ernest Hemingway: A medical portrait

    From a medical point of view, the life of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was shaped by repeated physical trauma, chronic disease, hereditary factors, and profound psychological influences. In the world of literature, he is remembered for his minimalist prose—spare, direct, “bare-bones”, and stripped of ornamentation. But… Read more

  • The medical life of Louisa May Alcott

    Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) was a novelist, short story writer, and poet. Raised in New England, she was an abolitionist and feminist, remained unmarried, and became active in reform movements such as temperance and women’s suffrage. As her family always lived on the poverty line,… Read more

  • C.S. Lewis and the medieval model of the universe

    Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) was a famous author and professor of English literature at both Oxford and Cambridge. Much of his scholarly work focused on the Middle Ages. His work The Discarded Image (1964) concerned the medieval concept of the… Read more