Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Zeus

  • Omphalos

    Margaret Nowaczyk Hamilton, Ontario, Canada   Chambered Nautilus Shell – detail. Photo by Jitze Couperus. 2008. Via Flickr CC BY 2.0 Once, I linked you to the woman who gave birth to you: for forty weeks, a twisted pearly cord, pulsing with two syncopated heartbeats, bound you two together. It fed you and gave you…

  • The trouble with the belly button

    Tonse N. K. Raju Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States   It is a simple dimple in the mid-abdomen. Yet for medieval artists, it caused mighty headaches while painting portraits of Adam and Eve. Painting the dimple as a natural anatomic feature could be construed as sacrilegious, implying that Adam and Eve were connected by umbilical cords…

  • On becoming a good physician

    L. Lewis Wall St. Louis, Missouri, USA   This is a narrative fiction, and the characters are not a reference to any historical figures. Zeno glanced at the trail ahead of him. He had left the main road a short time before and his destination was now in view, rising up ahead of him to…