Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: viruses

  • Koch’s postulates revisited

    JMS Pearce Hull, England   Van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1722), a Dutch botanist, using his early microscope observed single-celled bacteria, which he reported to the Royal Society as animalcules. The science of bacteriology owes its origin to two scientists of coruscating originality, Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. Pasteur may be described as master-architect and Koch as master-builder…

  • Book review: Viruses, Plagues, and History by M. B. A. Oldstone

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of Viruses, Plagues, & History: Past, Present, and Future Second Edition by Michael B. A. Oldstone.   The first edition of Viruses, Plagues, and History was published to great acclaim twenty years ago and has now been updated to include the pandemics of the twenty-first century. These…

  • Have we learned anything from 1918-1919 influenza?

    Edward Winslow Wilmette, Illinois, United States   Actual daily deaths from influenza, September to November 1918. Monthly Bulletin of the Department of Health, December 1918. NYC Municipal Library. Source.  The 2020 viral pandemic (COVID-19),1 in spite of being caused by a novel virus family, bears striking epidemiological and social resemblance to the influenza pandemic of 1918.2…

  • Where the unusual was usual: The Cook County Hospital blood bank

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Chicago, Illinois, United States   Surgical resident, Dr. Bohdan Iwanetz, trying to coax a recalcitrant little girl to drink her bottle. May 1977 Pediatric Surgery Ward 46 in the Cook County Children’s Hospital There are those who claim that the first blood collection and transfusion services were started by Percy Oliver of the…

  • Viruses and bacteria series

    Laura Olear Chicago, Illinois, USA   Artist’s statement We live in an age of profound advances in health and medicine, yet there has never been a wider gap between objective and perceptive health. I am interested in the ways in which many people dissociate themselves from their bodies and health, while others focus fixatedly on…