Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: World War II

  • Soul power

    Shannon Adams-Hartung Chicago, Illinois, United States Soul food has deep historical, cultural, and economic roots in the African American community. Much of the cuisine affiliated with modern-day soul food dates back to the era of American slavery. Before the fourteenth century, the African diet was primarily vegetarian. Meat was used sparingly in comparison to various…

  • Making radiation visible: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Godzilla

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb.”1—Tomoyuki Tanaka, producer of Gojira (Godzilla) The Third Reich surrendered to the Allies in early May 1945. This did not yet end World War Two, as the forces of Imperial Japan still occupied much of Asia and the islands…

  • The origins of NIH medical research grants

    Edward TaborBethesda, MD, United States The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) supports medical research in non-government universities and hospitals and some small businesses. The cost and scope of these grants significantly exceed those of NIH’s own intramural program of clinics, wards, and laboratories. The NIH extramural grants today provide more than $37 billion1,2 for…

  • Dr. Alice Miller on Hitler’s childhood

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “All it took was a Führer’s madness and several million well-raised Germans to extinguish the lives of countless millions of innocent human beings in the space of a few short years.”—Alice Miller, Ph.D. This article is based on the chapter “Adolf Hitler’s childhood: From hidden to manifest horror,” in Alice Miller, For…

  • Long before Pearl Harbor, an entire hospital was sent to help England in World War II

    Edward TaborBethesda, MD, United States Harvard University President James B. Conant had the idea of sending a fully staffed hospital to England to help the British in their war with Germany in 1939, more than two years before the US entered the war. It became a collaboration between Harvard University and the American Red Cross.…

  • Orion H. Stuteville: A surgeon’s surgeon

    Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United StatesBangalore JayaramMysuru, Karnataka, India The Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois fostered many notable American surgeons. It was also the birthplace of major medical and surgical advances. Dr. Orion Harry Stuteville (February 15, 1902 – May 26, 1994), or “Steudy”, was one such surgical giant. He had a unique life and…

  • Scotland’s Anthrax Island

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “They make a desolation and call it peace.”— Agha Shahid Ali (1949–2001) During World War Two, the British government purchased from its owners the Gruinard Island, a one by two km island off the Scottish coast. The one inhabitant was evicted, and the island became the site of secret tests to weaponize…

  • “The trial” of Dr. Spock

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”1— Rudolf Virchow, M.D. (1821-1902) “It took me until my sixties to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics.”2— Benjamin Spock, M.D. Benjamin McLane Spock (1903-1998) was an American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child…

  • When the FBI investigated William Carlos Williams

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “And my ‘medicine’ was the thing that gained me entrance to…[the] secret garden of the self…I was permitted by my medical badge to follow the poor, defeated body onto those gulfs and grottos[sic].”1— William Carlos Williams, M.D. William Carlos Williams (1883 – 1963), poet and physician, was born in Rutherford, New Jersey,…

  • Sister Kenny: The forgotten Nightingale

    Anand Raja Devaraj SushamaKerala, India Medical practices flourish and fall out of favor with time. Some become the norm only to turn redundant later; others prevail after a hard battle for acceptance. A campaign is even more arduous when the proponent is outside the establishment. Sister Elizabeth Kenny and her eponymous polio treatment, the “Kenny…