Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Winter 2023

  • Steller’s Sea eagle: Who was Georg Wilhelm Steller?

    James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Steller’s Sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) handily outsizes the national bird of the United States, the Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Steller’s Sea eagle is the heaviest eagle in the world: females weigh from thirteen to twenty pounds and males weigh between eleven and fifteen pounds. Its seven-foot wingspan is…

  • The white-collar antisocial personality

    Richard ZhangFarmington, Connecticut, United States A frequently overlooked topic in psychiatry is “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD) or “sociopathy,” specifically as it manifests in higher socioeconomic backgrounds and thus evades recognition. I once cared for a well-spoken, charming patient who practiced for years in a prestigious profession. While in his professional capacity, he embezzled thousands of…

  • Winnie Ille Pu and Dr. Alexander Lenard

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Sandor (Alexander) Lenard1 was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910 and died in Dona Irma, Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1972. He was a Jewish poet, author, physician, painter, musician, translator, language teacher, philosopher, and polyglot. A short outline of Lenard’s life events could be summarized as follows: Hungary, medical studies in…

  • Claudius Amyand (c. 1680–1740) of the first appendectomy

    On the southwest corner of London’s Hyde Park once stood St. George’s Hospital, now relocated to the suburbs. It had been founded in 1733 by a group of surgeons who moved there from the Westminster Hospital. Among them was a surgeon whose Huguenot parents had fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of…

  • Dear brainstem, you remind me of the Mona Lisa

    Serena YueHong Kong, China Dear brainstem, You remind me of the Mona Lisa, seated firmly and comfortably atop the spinal cord. The Mona Lisa exudes royalty and class, from her posture and garments to the plump smoothness of her hands. Your elegance also enthralls me, from the sleek medulla oblongata, ascending to the pons with…

  • Christopher Wren’s contributions to medicine

    JMS PearceHull, England An extraordinary natural philosopher and Renaissance man, Christopher Wren (1632–1723) (Fig 1) was primarily an astronomer and architect.1 He is remembered mostly for his work after the Great Fire of London of 1666 as designer of St. Paul’s Cathedral, originally erected in AD 604. Wren laid the first stone at on Ludgate…

  • Learning the vocabulary of medicine (and other foreign languages)

    Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Both of my parents were physicians, and their discussions were often medical. One weekend when I was about four years old, I listened to one such conversation at lunch and interrupted to ask, “When I grow up, will I be able to speak the language you speak?” They paused to…

  • On orchids and testes

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “You like orchids?…Nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, their perfume the rotten sweetness of corruption.”– John Steinbeck Orchids belong to a widespread group of flowering plants. There are about 28,000 species of orchids worldwide.1 The underground tubers of many European orchids—which contain the plant’s reserve food…

  • Whitlock Nicholl: Physician and theological writer

    Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel In November 1839, Dr. John Clendinning delivered at the St. Marylebone Infirmary a lecture on the examination of the sick, the principal sources of fallacy attending practical diagnosis, and “on feignted [not “feigned”] and concealed diseases, and insidious complications of disease.”1 The lecturer discussed “hysteria” and other neuroses, and a disease…

  • Two giants in thoracic surgery: Clarence Crafoord and Åke Senning

    Göran WettrellLund University, Sweden Clarence Crafoord Clarence Crafoord (1899–1984) was one of the most outstanding surgeons in Sweden during the twentieth century (Figure 1). He started his surgical training in the early 1920s. Postoperative complications such as obstructing pulmonary thrombosis were a frequent cause of death. In 1927, Crafoord performed two successful acute pulmonary embolectomies.1…