Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: vomiting

  • Ensor’s use of emesis in art

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden The Belgian artist James Ensor (1860-1949) was born to a Belgian mother, Maria Catherina Haegheman, and an English father, James Frederick Ensor. He was born and spent his entire life in Ostend, a summer resort town on the Belgian North Sea coast. The senior Ensor was not successful in business. He had…

  • Goals of care

    Leah Grant Portland, Oregon It was the beginning of my intern year and I felt like an impostor. Facing new responsibilities in both the hospital and clinic, I was aware of my lack of experience when patients asked for my medical opinion. But as I began to see the same patients again and again in the…

  • Botulism: From pork sausages to Botox

    Of the various kinds of food poisoning that afflict mankind, botulism is the most dangerous. It has likely occurred for many centuries, as shown by sundry dietary laws such as the prohibition of making blood sausages in the tenth century in the Byzantine Empire. At the end of the eighteenth century several outbreaks of so-called…

  • The dream of the uterus

    F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States More than one-half century ago, it was my duty to examine and describe, day in and day out, the bodily parts that surgeons removed at the hospital where I worked. Surely this peculiar daily routine must have incited the flights of fancy that I took then, and which I recount…