Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Zurich

  • “Phossy jaw”: an industrial horror story

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “The greatest tragedy in the whole story of occupational diseases.”1– Donald Hunter, M.D. (1898–1978) The development of cheap, reliable, and reasonably safe matches became possible with the addition of white phosphorus (P4O10) to the match head mixture. The first factory to use white phosphorus (also called “yellow phosphorus”) in match manufacturing opened…

  • A drawing created during World War I

    Tilman SauerbruchBonn, Germany A photograph of a drawing by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) of the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875-1951) has been hanging in my room since my student days (Fig. 1). At the top right there is a note: “To Prof. Sauerbruch in memory of the May 1915 M. Beckmann.” Beckmann was thirty-one years old at…

  • “Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”

    JMS PearceHull, England “Modern psychiatry begins with Kraepelin”1 The pages of history seen through the retrospectroscope often provide dull facts rather than insights into the personalities and driving forces of its famous subjects. Such is the case of Emil Wilhelm Kraepelin (1856-1926) (Fig 1), a German psychiatrist, widely acknowledged as the founder and pioneer of…

  • Dr. Sabina Spielrein: Consequences of feminism and love

    Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada While all our lives are eventful, some people tend to experience situations that set them apart. Born in 1885 in Rostov, Czarist Russia, Sabina was the eldest child of prosperous intellectualized parents of Jewish origin. Academically and artistically gifted, by age eighteen she developed alarming behavior. She showed tics, grimaces, body…