Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Winter 2019

  • Dr. Uplavici’s studies on amebic dysentery

    Professor Dr. Jaroslav Hlava In 1887 Professor Dr. Jaroslav Hlava (1855 –1924) of the Charles University in Prague carried out studies on the transmission of amebic dysentery by inoculating six cats with infected human stools and successfully producing dysentery in four. On completing his experiments, he published his results in a scientific paper under the title…

  • Physician, heal thyself

    Moustapha Abousamra Ventura, California, United States   Author’s right coronary artery before stenting “Physician, heal thyself” is a biblical reminder (Luke 4:23) that while physicians are eager and able to heal illness in others, they are often unable to heal themselves. A similar saying, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes,” was mentioned in the Oxford…

  • Maimed

    Laura Wendorff Platteville, Wisconsin, United States   Your friend says, Photo by Laura Wendorff think of the Amazons who cut off their right breasts in order to easily draw back their bows. But the loss is not like that. It’s more like a flower dug out of the ground, soil still clinging to its roots…

  • Flyfishing and medicine

    James Stoller Cleveland, Ohio, United States   Photo by Jeff Smith I am one of the many doctors who relish the zen of flyfishing. Standing in a stream, reading the clues for what type of fly to cast and where to cast it, and focusing incessantly on a dry fly drifting lithely to entice a…

  • Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam

    Jessica LoboLondon, Ontario, Canada Michelangelo painted some of his most famous work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, covering it with the world’s most beautiful frescoes, of which The Creation of Adam is the most iconic.1 He worked during the Italian Renaissance, and this was a time when “the personality of the Western artist became a…

  • Nature telling her secrets: the Kepler–Descartes connection

    Ronald Fishman Chicago, Illinois, United States   Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) Nature tells us one secret in terms of another, and she may refuse to disclose one secret until another has been laid bare. – T.S. Kuhn1 In 1604, Johannes Kepler solved the problem of how light is refracted within the eye to produce an image on the…

  • New Year’s Eve, Old Presbyterian Hospital

    Jacob Appel New York, New York, United States   PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL, MADISON AVENUE AND EAST 70TH STREET King’s Handbook of New York City, 1893. Public Domain. The gift shop is closed. Only a graveyard Skeleton crew in the pharmacy, a solitary Cleaner orbiting a mop across the skyway. Below lights blinking red green red through Dark and…

  • Nikolai Gogol’s The Diary of a Madman

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a member of the first wave of great Russian authors of the nineteenth century. Born in a Ukrainian Cossack village then part of the Russian Empire, he made his way to Saint Petersburg where he found his métier in the short…

  • Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A cautionary tale

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Mary Shelley 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein. This remarkable work of fiction has inspired a wealth of popular currency in the form of numerous cinematic productions which have grossly distorted the public understanding of the work and obscured…

  • Dr. Charles Drew, Philip Roth, and race

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Charles R. Drew, 1904 “My point is, if you have a course on health and whatever, then you do know Dr. Charles Drew. You’ve heard of him?” “No.” “Shame on you, Mr. Zukerman. I’ll tell you in a minute” . . . “You haven’t told me who…