Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Vienna

  • The most enduring fictional character in literature, Sherlock Holmes, created by a physician

    Marshall LichtmanRochester, New York, United States My colleague and friend, Professor Seymour I. Schwartz, a distinguished surgeon and academician, has chronicled the careers of over 100 physicians who were notable writers in his monograph From Medicine to Manuscript: Doctors with a Literary Legacy.1 These physician-writers ranged from Maimonides to John Locke to John Keats to…

  • From woodpeckers to Auenbrugger

    James Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States In learning the art of physical diagnosis, every medical student is taught the technique and application of percussion. Percussion involves placing the palm and fingers of one hand on the patient and using the tip of the third finger of the other hand as a hammer, striking the distal interphalangeal…

  • 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…

  • Washing our hands

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Ever since Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, washed his hands before condemning Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion, this simple act of personal sanitation has been used as the figurative icon of a disclaimer, the denial of responsibility. Today, in the climate of the current COVID-19 pandemic, handwashing is not…

  • Arthritis in Albrecht Durer’s Praying Hands

    Ariana ShaariNew York, New York, United States Albrecht Durer is considered one of the masters of German Renaissance art and has been dubbed “the da Vinci of the North.” He is especially esteemed for elevating printmaking to an art form and for deeply psychological and technically impressive works on religious subjects such as Life of…

  • Bloodletting with leeches: More dangerous than meeting Dracula

    S. Sabrina Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan Since time immemorial physicians have treated patients by removing various amounts of blood from the circulatory system. For this purpose they used objects that could cut the skin, such as sharpened pieces of wood, stones, teeth of wild animals, or even the feathers of birds. These tools changed over time, and…

  • The Rh factor: An intertwined history

    Paula CarterChicago, Illinois In 1924, Lucy Reyburn gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Darlene. Lucy lived in Iowa and the birth was an embarrassment. She had become pregnant and hurriedly married a man who left before the baby was born. It was for the best; the man had been unkind. But…

  • The special art of Vienna

    Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada Vienna, capital of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, has always promised intellectual fervor, Strauss waltzes, Schnitzlerian flirtations, Sachertorte, and the beautiful golden women painted by Gustav Klimt (fig. 1).1 Others such as Eduard Pernkopf, head of anatomy at Vienna’s renowned medical school, achieved artistic brilliance by creating a beautiful, internationally acclaimed atlas…