Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: United Kingdom

  • William Marsden, surgeon and founder of the Royal Free and Royal Marsden Hospitals, London

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom To found one hospital is a fairly unusual achievement; to found two is a rare feat indeed. William Marsden, a nineteenth-century British doctor, founded both the Royal Free Hospital and the Royal Cancer Hospital (now known as the Royal Marsden Hospital) in London. William Marsden was born in August 1796 in…

  • Joseph Merrick, “The Elephant Man”

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom As a specimen of humanity, Merrick was ignoble and repulsive; but the spirit of Merrick, if it can be seen in the form of the living, would assume the figure of an upstanding and heroic man . . .6 The life of Joseph Merrick, also known as “the Elephant Man,”…

  • Professionalism in crisis: Dr. Winkel and The Third Man

    Paul DakinLondon, United Kingdom Times of crisis may highlight the best and worst characteristics of people. Many of us yearn to be heroes and yet what is revealed under pressure may fall short of our ideal. Doctors share this human frailty. Is medical training and professionalism enough to overcome personal weakness, allowing our behavior to…

  • Dirty, dark, dangerous: Coal miners’ nystagmus

    Ronald FishmanChicago, Illinois, United States It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,Where the danger is double and pleasures are fewWhere the rain never falls and the sun never shinesIt’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine. From the song “Dark as a Dungeon” – Merle Travis Nystagmus is a repetitive oscillation of the…

  • Blood and bandages

    Patricia UnsworthBolton, England, United Kingdom The notorious Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is possibly the first thought that comes to mind at the mention of barber surgeons, but how far from reality was this character of Victorian fiction? Perhaps not so far removed as one might imagine. Todd was obviously a barber,…

  • Alternatives to blood transfusion

    Geraldine MillerLiverpool, England In 1616 William Harvey first discovered how blood circulates around the body. This discovery stimulated research into transfusing blood from one person to another. Early attempts to replace blood began with liquids such as milk, both animal and human, urine, and beer. Sir Christopher Wren in the seventeenth century even suggested opium…

  • Eugenics: Historic and contemporary

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Moral judgments, changing ethical criteria, and the broader concepts of good and evil are always controversial, and often dangerous. Prominent amongst such judgments are those relating to population control and the wider, ill-defined field of eugenics. Hidden, and often ignored or denied in these conversations, is the underlying conflict between…

  • “Blood made White”: The relationship between blood and breastmilk in early modern England

    Jennifer EvansSara ReadUnited Kingdom The early modern body was thought to be composed of and ordered by an intricate balance of fluids, the most important of which was blood. Blood was universally understood to have two origins: the heart and the liver. Together with the brain, these organs formed what Galen called “the noble organs.”…

  • The remarkable Baldwin IV: Leper and king of Jerusalem

    John TurnerAintree, Liverpool, United Kingdom The young King Baldwin Medieval teen king, precocious politician, and successful battlefield commander, Baldwin IV not only surmounted disabling neurological impairment but challenged the stigma of leprosy, remarkably continuing to rule until his premature death aged twenty-three. His coronation as sixth king of Jerusalem at age thirteen coincided with the…