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# Hektoen International

An online medical humanities journal

## Sitemaps

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## Posts

- [The tapeworm diet: Myth, mostly](https://hekint.org/2023/06/07/the-tapeworm-diet-myth-mostly/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use…‘we.’”—Attributed to Mark Twain The tapeworm is a flatworm that can live in the human intestine. Humans acquire tapeworms by eating raw or uncooked flesh that contains tapeworm larvae or “cysts.” Raw or uncooked beef—in the form of “steak tartare,”
- [Al-Biruni (973–1048)](https://hekint.org/2023/06/08/ai-biruni-973-1048/) - Asad BakirGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States In the year 973 during the Islamic Golden Age, there was born in the city of Kath in Khwarezm (modern Uzbekistan) one of the greatest polymaths of all time. His complete name was Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni; the last name is derived from the Persian word birun
- [John Haygarth, pioneer epidemiologist](https://hekint.org/2023/06/13/john-haygarth-pioneer-epidemiologist/) - John Haygarth. 1827. US National Library of Medicine. In one of his Table Talk essays, William Hazlitt wrote that “posterity is by no means as disinterested as they might be supposed to be, and that they give the gratitude and admiration in return for benefits received.” In this spirit we remember both the physician John
- [A surgeon and a gentleman: the life of James Barry](https://hekint.org/2020/04/03/a-surgeon-and-a-gentleman-the-life-of-james-barry/) - Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States Dr. James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche. Unknown Artist. c1850. “Do not consider whether what I say is a young man speaking, but whether my discussion with you is that of a man of understanding.”1 – Dedication of the thesis of James Barry In November of 1809, a
- [One chaplain’s journey: Teaching, hospice, and humanities](https://hekint.org/2021/02/16/one-chaplains-journey-teaching-hospice-and-humanities/) - Initially uncomfortable with pastoral care, I kept at it, read, consulted mentors, developed skills. The time came to move on from parish life, an easy...
- [Reading should be a pleasure, not a burden](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/reading-should-be-a-pleasure-not-a-burden/) - Winter 2012, George Dunea, Education, William Somerset Maugham, reading, Hektoen
- [Justine Siegemund, opening doorways to midwifery](https://hekint.org/2021/04/21/justine-siegemund-opening-doorways-to-midwifery/) - Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States In the mid-1600s, midwife Justine Siegemund was a household name for mothers in Silesia, part of modern-day Poland. She served patients of every class in Legnica, in Berlin, and beyond, and published an obstetric manual which became one of the most popular midwifery books of its time. Details on her
- [A Hispanic amulet against disease in infants](https://hekint.org/2023/10/10/a-hispanic-amulet-against-disease-in-infants/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States In my pediatric residency at a New York City hospital many years ago, I noticed that half of my Hispanic infant patients, as well as some toddlers, wore a small black and red amulet that their parents hoped would protect against disease. When I asked other residents and attending physicians
- [Antezana Hospital, Spain](https://hekint.org/2026/02/19/antezana-hospital-spain/) - Mojca RamšakLjubljana, Slovenia In the center of the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid, stands an exceptional institution—the Antezana Hospital, officially Hospital de Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia. It is one of the oldest continuously operating hospitals in Western Europe, having functioned for more than five centuries. Today, it houses a nursing home
- [Ancient India in 1,500 words](https://hekint.org/2026/02/19/ancient-india-in-1500-words/) - Homo sapiens originated in Africa about 300,000 years ago and arrived in India in waves beginning about 65,000 years ago. Early populations were hunter-gatherers and did not adopt a sedentary way of life until about 7,000 years BCE, when they began to domesticate plants and animals. As their civilization expanded, villages grew into towns and
- [On clubfoot, orthopedics, art, and history](https://hekint.org/2026/02/13/on-clubfoot-orthopedics-art-and-history/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel A clubfoot,1 or congenital talipes equinovarus (CTEV), is a birth defect in which the foot is inverted. If untreated, children with TEV often walk on their ankles, or on the sides of their feet. The condition occurs about one in every 1,000 live births. Recently, I watched an excellent French film,
- [Rome’s Ospedale Santo Spirito: From ruin to revival](https://hekint.org/2026/02/13/romes-ospedale-santo-spirito-from-ruin-to-revival/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Renowned for his restoration of the legendary Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere; 1414–1484) embellished Rome with such rapidity and magnitude that he earned the title Urbis Restaurator. Some lauded him as the new Augustus of the Eternal City and praised him for surpassing his
- [The spleen and melancholy](https://hekint.org/2026/02/13/the-spleen-and-melancholy/) - Old Democritus under a tree,Sits on a stone with book on knee;About him hang there many features,Of Cats, Dogs and such like creatures,Of which he makes anatomy,The seat of black choler to see.—Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy The spleen could be described as occupying a special place between medicine and science versus art and
- [The once fatal pernicious anemia](https://hekint.org/2026/02/13/the-once-fatal-pernicious-anemia/) - For much of medical history, pernicious anemia was a baffling and invariably fatal disorder. Characterized by profound weakness, pallor, glossitis, and progressive neurologic decline, it carried an ominous reputation. Its name—“pernicious”—reflected the despair of physicians who could offer no remedy. The symptoms of this disease developed gradually and were fatigue, weakness, pallor, and shortness of
- [Blood and pernicious anemia](https://hekint.org/2020/01/28/blood-and-pernicious-anemia/) - Omar AlzarkaliBatavia, New York, United States Blood is powerful. The mere sight of it can cause an adult to fall to the ground; as a medical student, I have seen it happen. Faces go pale and legs can no longer carry their weight as they succumb to this primitive reflex. Perhaps this vasovagal response happens
- [Earl Bakken: Pacemaker pioneer and founder of Medtronic](https://hekint.org/2026/02/13/earl-bakken-pacemaker-pioneer-and-founder-of-medtronic/) - Ahmed NadeemChicago, Illinois, United States Earl Bakken was an electrical engineer who developed the external, battery-operated, wearable pacemaker. He was born in Minnesota in 1924 and received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. In 1949, he founded a company called Medtronic with his brother-in-law,
- [Ramazzini and the birth of occupational medicine](https://hekint.org/2017/01/28/ramazzini-and-the-birth-of-occupational-medicine/) - Luciano DalientoLucia Dal BiancoGabriella RomeoItaly Bernardino Ramazzini, considered to be the founder of occupational and industrial medicine, was born in 1633 in Capri, a little town in the north of Italy, known nowadays because of its ceramics. Following the important innovations of the Paduan school of anatomy (Vesalius, Fabricius d’Acquapendente, and Harvey), he spearheaded the
- [Marmite: Its place in medical history, Lucy Wills, and the discovery of folic acid](https://hekint.org/2022/05/26/marmite-its-place-in-medical-history-lucy-wills-and-the-discovery-of-folic-acid/) - Marmite has a place in medical history for its contribution to the discovery of folic acid and treatment of anemia...
- [Jacobus Rau: Surgical innovator, renowned lithotomist, and educator at Leiden     ](https://hekint.org/2026/02/09/jacobus-rau-surgical-innovator-renowned-lithotomist-and-educator-at-leiden/) - Johann Jakob Rau, latinized to Johannes, was one of the most influential surgical innovators of early modern Europe, best known for transforming the treatment of urinary bladder stones through his lateral lithotomy technique. Born in 1668 in Baden-Baden, he was the son of wine merchant Johannes and Magdalena Muller. His early exposure to medicine came
- [Bernhard Siegfried Albinus: Anatomist and surgeon](https://hekint.org/2026/02/09/bernhard-siegfried-albinus-anatomist-and-surgeon/) - Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, originally called Weiss, was born at Frankfurt on the Oder in 1697. There his father was professor of medicine until 1702 when he was transferred to the chair of medicine at Leiden University. Thus young Bernhard began his education in the Netherlands at the age of twelve, studying under the famous Govert
- [Agatha Christie’s first post-mortem](https://hekint.org/2026/02/09/agatha-christies-first-post-mortem/) - Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Aficionados of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple could do worse than read Carla Valentine’s Murder Isn’t Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie.1 In the book’s introduction, we’re reminded that Christie, the “Queen of Crime,” remains the world’s all-time bestselling novelist, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Valentine describes Christie’s dedication to
- [Ignaz Semmelweis: The original hand hygiene pioneer](https://hekint.org/2026/02/09/ignaz-semmelweis-the-original-hand-hygiene-pioneer/) - Matthew HillAbdullah MubarikJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (1818–1865) was born on July 1, 1818, in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of a wealthy grocer and the fifth of ten children. While little is known of his childhood, he would eventually go on to study law at the University of Vienna in
- [Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012): “Chance favors the prepared mind”](https://hekint.org/2024/02/05/rita-levi-montalcini-1909-2012-chance-favors-the-prepared-mind/) - Rita Levi-Montalcini shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of “nerve growth factor” (NGF) that has since shed light on tumors, wound healing, and other...
- [Ambroise Pare: Standard bearer for barber-surgery reform](https://hekint.org/2020/02/10/ambroise-pare-standard-bearer-for-barber-surgery-reform/) - Mildred WilsonDetroit, MI “There are five duties of surgery: to remove what is superfluous, to restore what has been dislocated, to separate what has grown together, to reunite what has been divided, and to redress the defects of nature.”—Ambroise Pare1 For centuries, barbers throughout Europe assisted monks in bloodletting. In 1163, Pope Alexander III issued
- [Scoliosis](https://hekint.org/2019/12/02/scoliosis/) - Augusta Zetterling was one of the first women in Sweden to make a living as a photographer. This photo is from a series she took of women and girls with a curvature of the spine called scoliosis. Whereas mild cases of scoliosis may have little effect on a patient’s life, more severe cases can cause
- [A moonie](https://hekint.org/2021/01/13/a-moonie/) - Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel Wally Moon was a legend who stood at least 1.90 meters tall. The most striking things about him were his appearance and his gruffness. When I met him during my residency he was in his early sixties. He had a magnificent girth, fuelled by quantities of non-politically correct food—even then in
- [History of medicine in ancient India](https://hekint.org/2021/08/27/history-of-medicine-in-ancient-india/) - Keerthana KallaSeattle, Washington, United States The chronicle of medicine is the story of man's struggle against illness. As early as 5000 BC, India developed a comprehensive form of healing called Ayurveda. Such traditional healing was first recorded between 4500 and 1600 BC. It is believed that sages were the early practitioners of Ayurveda around 2500
- [Blood under the moon: The role of astrology in surgery](https://hekint.org/2020/02/05/blood-under-the-moon-the-role-of-astrology-in-surgery/) - Margareta-Erminia CassaniMichigan, United States Imagine your doctor telling you that you need surgery. Then they follow that unsettling news with something, well, a little strange sounding. They tell you that the date picked for your surgery needs to occur during a waning moon to control bleeding. After you have stared blankly at them for a
- [Intubation for diphtheria](https://hekint.org/2020/05/04/intubation-for-diphtheria/) - In 1904 diphtheria was a dangerous killer that suffocated its victims by obstructing the respiratory passages and sometimes required an emergency but dangerous surgical tracheostomy. In this painting a specialist in infectious diseases is avoiding tracheostomy by inserting a tube to bypass the obstruction. He is observed intently by interested physicians, all watching this new
- [Lorenz Heister, German surgeon](https://hekint.org/2026/02/05/lorenz-heister-german-surgeon/) - Lorenz Heister (or Laurentius Heister in his Latin works) was a prominent German general, eye surgeon, and professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Altdorf, Germany. Heister contributed significantly to surgical practice, particularly through his influential surgical books, which hold a place in medical literature comparable to that of Ambroise Paré. Born to
- [A second mind in scientific writing](https://hekint.org/2026/02/05/a-second-mind-in-scientific-writing/) - Rao UppuBaton Rouge, Louisiana, United States Clarity in scientific writing is a rare achievement. As Margaret Thatcher would have said in a different context, it does not fall from Heaven but needs work, often a lot of it. I learned this years ago, not in a laboratory or a seminar, but in my living room,
- [“These late eclipses … portend no good to us” – Shakespeare](https://hekint.org/2026/02/05/these-late-eclipses-portend-no-good-to-us-shakespeare/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Introduction Eclipses of the sun or moon were powerful images used by William Shakespeare in ten of his plays and poems.1 Shakespeare’s characters believed that eclipses were under the control of evil forces, that eclipses could predict the fall of governments, and noted how people blamed their weaknesses and failures
- [The rise and fall of railway spine](https://hekint.org/2026/02/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-railway-spine/) - Lenny GrantSyracuse, New York, United States By 1864, British railways were responsible for 36 deaths and 700 injuries annually.1,2 Yet the most perplexing cases were not the visibly wounded, but those passengers who walked away apparently unharmed, only to develop debilitating symptoms days or weeks later. These survivors experienced what the Lancet described as "disturbed and diminished
- [Agatha Christie, nurse](https://hekint.org/2025/01/30/agatha-christie-nurse/) - It is not well known that Agatha Christie (1890–1976), the most published author of all time, served as a Red Cross nurse volunteer in World War I.
- [A Polish tragedy and a case without a diagnosis](https://hekint.org/2026/02/02/a-polish-tragedy-and-a-case-without-a-diagnosis/) - On the morning of September 1, 1939, German troops attacked Poland without a declaration of war. Two weeks later, on September 17, while Poland was defending itself in the west, the Soviet Union attacked from the east. This two-pronged attack was too much for Poland to handle. On October 6, 1939, its last troops surrendered.
- [Nicolaas Fontanus, eminent Dutch physician](https://hekint.org/2026/02/02/nicolaas-fontanus-eminent-dutch-physician/) - Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, Netherlands In the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic, freedom of thought and inquiry thrived in the seventeenth century. The University of Leyden, founded in 1575, embraced medicine and botany, and nurtured literature, poetry, and theatre. It was against this cultural backdrop that Nicolaas Fontanus (Fonteyn) worked as a physician, playwright, and poet.
- [Chlorosis, the green anemia of young women](https://hekint.org/2026/01/29/chlorosis-the-green-anemia-of-young-women/) - Chlorosis was one of the most common diseases affecting adolescent girls and young women in Europe and North America during the 17th to 19th centuries. Its main features were a pale or greenish appearance, fatigue and weakness, shortness of breath, palpitations, loss of appetite, and amenorrhea or irregular menstruation. Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Madame
- [Martinus van Marum, physician, scientist, and inventor](https://hekint.org/2026/01/29/martinus-van-marum-physician-scientist-and-inventor/) - Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, Netherlands Martinus van Marum, who was born in 1750 during the era of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, went on to enjoy a remarkable career in science. His father, Petrus van Marum, was a graduate engineer from Groningen who had started a pottery-factory in Delft, married Cornelia van Oudheusden, and had
- [Eggplants: History and science](https://hekint.org/2026/01/26/eggplants-history-and-science/) - The eggplant belongs to the genus Solanum of the nightshade family Solanaceae, along with the tomato and potato. Botanically it is a fruit, specifically a berry, though it is treated like a vegetable in the kitchen. Also belonging to the Solanum genus are chili peppers, as well as the poisonous Atropa belladonna and Datura stramonium (jimson weed).
- [The Physician’s Prayer](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/the-physicians-prayer/) - Hektoen, George Dunea, Summer 2015, Donald Hunter, Robert Hutchison, Literary Vignettes
- [Alcmaeon of Croton, philosopher physician](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/alcmaeon-of-croton-philosopher-physician/) - Steph MagowanRoyal Holloway, University of London Alcmaeon of Croton remains one of the lesser known Presocratic writers, not only because of the sparse nature of his extant work but also because of his fragmentary treatment in modern scholarship. He is mentioned in passing but rarely fully examined, often even excluded entirely in work dealing with
- [Johannes Lange of Heidelberg](https://hekint.org/2026/01/22/johannes-lange-of-heidelberg/) - Johannes Lange of Heidelberg is sometimes credited with being the first to describe what later became known as “chlorosis” but that he called morbus virgineus, the disease of virgins. Born in Silesia in 1485, Lange went to study philosophy at the University of Leipzig, but later found he was more drawn to medicine and migrated
- [The silence of Dona Zefa](https://hekint.org/2026/01/22/the-silence-of-dona-zefa/) - Guilherme CoelhoSão Paulo, Brazil Josefa Maria do Carmo—Dona Zefa to everyone—was the kind of woman you knew before you met her. The whole favela spoke of her like a patron saint: with respect, affection, and a reasonable fear of not wanting to disappoint her. Seventy-two years old, the widow of Seu Agenor, she was mother
- [Sufjan Stevens’s “Casimir Pulaski Day”](https://hekint.org/2026/01/22/sufjan-stevenss-casimir-pulaski-day/) - Róisín ConlonDublin, Ireland Music has been a powerful medium for expressing grief throughout the ages.1 A modern and touching example from the American singer Sufjan Stevens, “Casimir Pulaski Day,”2 explores complex narratives of grief and loss. An upbeat instrumental mix of banjo and trumpet contrasts with the sobering reality of the lyrics, which narrate the illness
- [How black turned white](https://hekint.org/2021/09/03/how-black-turned-white/) - Kateryna TsoiKharkiv, Ukraine In 1876, the World's Fair was held outside Europe for the first time, taking place in Philadelphia and coinciding with the centenary of the US Declaration of Independence. Thomas Eakins, not yet a well-known artist, decided to present a large-scale canvas at the exhibition of a subject he knew well. An ardent
- [Learning about children](https://hekint.org/2020/08/12/learning-about-children/) - Canon BrodarMiami, Florida, United States I began my first clinical rotation excited but fearful. Medical students are taught about pediatric pathology and developmental milestones, but nothing about working with children and their families. I had heard the constant refrain that “children are not just little adults” but as I started preparing for pediatrics, I had
- [Twins](https://hekint.org/2021/02/18/twins/) - John Graham-PoleClydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling the American healthcare system, and after some thought had
- [Dr. Samuel Sarphati](https://hekint.org/2020/05/05/dr-samuel-sarphati/) - Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands Times of confusion and uncertainty can also be fruitful grounds for seeds to root, rise, and bloom. One such seed was Dr. Samuel Sarphati, who created New Amsterdam on the banks of the river Amstel. Amsterdam in the early nineteenth century was already renowned for its prosperous canal belts, streets lit
- [Princes of Physicians: Avicenna and Maimonides](https://hekint.org/2026/01/16/princes-of-physicians-avicenna-and-maimonides/) - James MarcumWaco, Texas, United States Islamic and Jewish scholars, such as Al-Kindi (801–873 CE), Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari (c. 838 – c. 870 CE), Al-Razi (865–925 CE), Al-Ghazali (1058–1111 CE), and Ibn-Rushd or Averroes (1126–1198 CE), among others, had a major impact on western Medieval medicine.1 Two of the most prominent scholars, however, are
- [“Medical Mannerism” (1520–1580)](https://hekint.org/2026/01/16/medical-mannerism-1520-1580/) - Mannerism in art is characterized by the work of innovators who tried new approaches to their discipline—such as Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, El Greco, Spranger and Goltzius. Physicians, by contrast, remained rooted in the ancient humoral theory of Hippocrates and Galen, continuing to understand health as a balance between the four bodily humors, making diagnoses
- [Tibet: History and medicine](https://hekint.org/2026/01/16/tibet-history-and-medicine/) - Situated 14,000 feet above sea level, the vast Tibetan plateau has been inhabited by humans for at least 21,000 years. Adapted to extreme altitude and cold, early nomadic pastoralists hunted, herded, traded, and developed routes linking Tibet with other parts of the world. Their early religion was animistic. Mountains, rivers, and sky phenomena were regarded
- [Rene Favaloro—Father of cardiac bypass surgery](https://hekint.org/2024/03/04/rene-favaloro-father-of-cardiac-bypass-surgery/) - Rene Favaloro is remembered as the father of coronary bypass surgery, an accolade attributed to him by none other...
- [I, Baldwin: Leper king of Jerusalem](https://hekint.org/2026/01/15/i-baldwin-leper-king-of-jerusalem/) - Óscar Lamas FilgueiraValencia, Spain Baldwin IV (1161–1185), known as “the Leper King”, was king of Jerusalem during the late twelfth century. Despite developing leprosy in childhood, he ruled during a period of intense military and political instability and personally led his forces to a decisive victory against Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard in 1177.
- [The seeds of resilience](https://hekint.org/2018/03/21/the-seeds-of-resilience/) - Bryanne StandiferRedford, Michigan, United States One Friday morning in high school, I counted fourteen murders in one week in the city that I call home. I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Not the cool, trendy Detroit we know now, but the Detroit that made us lock our doors at night and look both
- [Philippe Gaucher (1854–1918)](https://hekint.org/2020/09/10/philippe-gaucher-1854-1918/) - In the days when syphilis was rampant in Europe and diagnostic modalities few, many unrelated medical conditions were erroneously attributed to it. There was, for example, the distinguished professor of syphilology and dermatology at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine and the University of Paris, who “aggressively promoted” the idea that poliomyelitis and appendicitis were due to syphilis.
- [A musical vision: the eyes of Bach and Handel](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/a-musical-vision-the-eyes-of-bach-and-handel/) - Vincent P. de LuiseNew Haven, Connecticut, United States George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach, the towering musical giants of the Baroque, were both coincidently born in Germany about a month apart, in 1685. They also shared the musical style distinctive of the high Baroque characterized by the masterful use of counterpoint and fugal composition.
- [Anastasius the "odd-eyes"](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/anastasius-the-odd-eyes/) - Zeynel KarciogluCharlottesville, VA Although Anastasius I was one of the most capable Byzantine emperors, he and his reign are little known or discussed in modernity (Figure 1). This may be due to his reign being overshadowed by the more dramatic rule of his close follower, Justinian. Becoming emperor in 491, Anastasius died at the age
- [Robin Williams: Death from Lewy body dementia](https://hekint.org/2026/01/12/robin-williams-death-from-lewy-body-dementia/) - Mary Ellen KellyDublin, Ireland When the death of Robin Williams was announced on August 12, 2014, the world shed a tear. The passing of the acclaimed and adored actor came as a shock to many, the announcement by the Marin County sheriff’s office having specified that the cause of death was suicide and that Mr.
- [Amnesia remembered](https://hekint.org/2019/04/24/amnesia-remembered/) - Karen LangerNew York, New York, United States Amnesia, the medical record noted. He developed amnesia after a mechanical fall on black ice, resulting in a mild traumatic brain injury and a hip fracture. After surgery to repair the hip, there was onset of metabolic encephalopathy, and between the encephalopathy and the brain injury he developed
- [Desert blooms](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/desert-blooms/) - Geraldine GormanChicago, Illinois, United States Springtime has come to the desert. It is subtle, but spring, nonetheless. I am here with a group of nursing students who are spending their break working with a humanitarian aid organization serving the undocumented border crossers. Some of us are in Nogales, which spans the Arizona/Mexican border, some in the
- [Women surgeons](https://hekint.org/2021/09/10/women-surgeons/) - Moustapha AbousamraVentura, California, United States Last spring, I spent three months in the Texas Hill Country. It is a place that at once can be beautiful and hostile. The fields of blue bonnets in full bloom are breathtaking. The cacti that abound around barbed wire fences at first glance appear ominous with their threatening thorns,
- [Ladies in red: Medical and metaphorical reflections on La Traviata](https://hekint.org/2020/04/06/ladies-in-red-medical-and-metaphorical-reflections-on-la-traviata/) - Milad MattaGregory RuteckiLyndhurst, Ohio, United States “. . . phthisic beauty[’s] . . . most famous operatic embodiment was Violetta Valery . . .This physical type became not only fashionable but sexy . . . When a society does not understand—and cannot control—a disease, ground seems to open up for mythologizing . . . it.”1
- [Have we learned anything from 1918–1919 influenza?](https://hekint.org/2020/06/01/have-we-learned-anything-from-1918-1919-influenza/) - Edward WinslowWilmette, Illinois, United States The 2020 viral pandemic (COVID-19),1 in spite of being caused by a novel virus family, bears striking epidemiological and social resemblance to the influenza pandemic of 1918.2 Both appeared suddenly and caused severe disease around the globe.3 The 1918 contagion is considered one of the worst in world history4 and
- [To wear or not to wear? Attitudes towards mask wearing then and now](https://hekint.org/2021/03/26/to-wear-or-not-to-wear-attitudes-towards-mask-wearing-then-and-now/) - Mariella ScerriVictor GrechMellieha, Malta More than a century ago, as the 1918 influenza pandemic raged around the globe, masks of gauze and cheesecloth became the facial frontlines in the battle against the virus. However, in a volatile environment induced by a pandemic, the use of masks also stoked political division. Although medical authorities urged the
- [Gav’s <i>Frida Kahlo: Heroine of Pain</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/07/02/gavs-frida-kahlo-heroine-of-pain/) - In Frida Kahlo: Heroine of Pain, an Australian artist captures the development of Frida Kahlo's lingering pain and artistic excellence.
- [The chemistry of coffee and the paradox of balance](https://hekint.org/2026/01/08/the-chemistry-of-coffee-and-the-paradox-of-balance/) - Rao UppuBaton Rouge, Louisiana, United States Coffee is more than a daily stimulant; it is a quiet lesson in biological balance. The long-running debate over whether coffee is “good” or “bad” increasingly shows that, for most people, moderate intake—about one to three cups a day—sits comfortably within that balance. Coffee also carries cultural meaning, reminding
- [Charles Bonnet Syndrome: The landscape of my mind](https://hekint.org/2026/01/08/charles-bonnet-syndrome-the-landscape-of-my-mind/) - Ceres Alhelí Otero PenicheMexico City, Mexico Today I awoke feeling hopeless, disconnected from my body and from my thoughts. All I could sense was the void that my loss of vision represented. I kept thinking how beautiful it would be to see clearly as I opened my eyes. Then suddenly the room began to distort.
- [Shostakovich and the simian serenade](https://hekint.org/2026/01/08/shostakovich-and-the-simian-serenade/) - Desmond O’NeillDublin, Ireland One of the fascinations of medical humanities is the two-way traffic between artists and scientists with cutting-edge aspects of science, technology, and medicine. A signal example is the heady ferment of scientific experimentation in the Soviet Union. One of the more exotic experiments was the effort by Professor Ilya Ivanov to hybridize
- [Mercurochrome](https://hekint.org/2026/01/08/mercurochrome/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States It's easy to spot a boy... He smells of licorice, he smells of mice, Of Mercurochrome, and vanilla ice.—Ogden Nash, A Boy is a Boy (1961)1 Visiting the World Heritage Ngorongoro Conservation Area on a safari expedition in Tanzania in 2018, I managed to scrape my shin against a sharp rock and
- [Thoughts in a hospital elevator](https://hekint.org/2026/01/08/thoughts-in-a-hospital-elevator/) - Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It is New Year’s Eve, the last day of the year, and as I ride the hospital elevator down to the underground car park, oddly but not inexplicably I think about life and death. Ever since I started medical practice, at the end of each year, I go through my records and
- [Saint Apollonia, patron saint of odontology](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/saint-apollonia-patron-saint-of-odontology/) - Anna Lantz, Summer 2016, Art Flashes, Images of Saint Apollonia, Virgo Apollonia, Hektoen
- [Children treating children: Anne Shirley as clinician](https://hekint.org/2020/07/17/children-treating-children-anne-shirley-as-clinician/) - Kathryne DycusMadrid, Spain Childhood classics provide a range of illness narratives, reminding readers of dangers now preventable and even treatable, but also of the universal imperatives of understanding and accommodating the morbidity and mortality that can accompany childhood. Sickness in children’s literature, as in medicine, presents dramatically colorful dimensions of plot twist, character development, human
- [Identity beyond memory: Rethinking early onset Alzheimer’s disease](https://hekint.org/2026/01/05/identity-beyond-memory-rethinking-early-onset-alzheimers-disease/) - Firas Ghanem Beirut, LebanonNancy ChedidCambridge, Massachusetts, United States “On my good days, I can almost pass for a normal person, and on my bad days, I feel like I can’t find myself. I’ve always been so defined by my intellect, my language, my articulation, and now sometimes I can see the words hanging in front of
- [Emerging infections: A perpetual challenge](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/emerging-infections-a-perpetual-challenge/) - Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and their determinants, have recently attracted substantial scientific and popular attention. (Winter 2009)
- [Brain surgery, now and then](https://hekint.org/2025/12/31/brain-surgery-now-and-then/) - Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland In Michael Crichton’s novel The Terminal Man (1972), Harry Benson undergoes brain surgery at the hands of Dr. Roger McPherson, head of the prestigious Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, Los Angeles.1 By implanting electrodes deep in Benson’s brain, McPherson plans to cure him of the violent seizures that require him to be guarded by
- [Pierre Bretonneau](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/pierre-bretonneau/) - Aditi SivaramakrishnanUnited Kingdom Pierre Fidèle Bretonneau was a French physician known for being one of the first to explore new ideas of medicine and science relating to bacteria and disease. Born into a middle-class family of healers and medical practitioners, Bretonneau quickly gained an interest in history and medicine, encouraged by his father who was
- [The doctors of Thomas Hardy](https://hekint.org/2025/12/31/the-doctors-of-thomas-hardy/) - In his widely read novels, Thomas Hardy describes life in late nineteenth-century England, when truly effective medical remedies were exceedingly few and doctors were greatly limited in what they could achieve. Conditions were worse in rural areas, where poverty was an additional factor in determining the outcome of illnesses. Although doctors in Hardy’s novels typically have
- [“Satturday” by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who helped introduce smallpox inoculation to England](https://hekint.org/2024/06/10/satturday-by-lady-mary-wortley-montagu-who-helped-introduce-smallpox-inoculation-to-england/) - Cristóbal Berry-CabánFort Liberty, North Carolina, United States Lady Mary Wortley Montagu1 was born in 1689 to an aristocratic family. She was highly intelligent and self-educated by having access to her father’s library, studying the classics, and even learning Latin. In 1712 she rejected her father's choice and eloped with Edward Wortley Montagu, a young Whig
- [Rabies, still a deadly disease](https://hekint.org/2024/06/13/rabies-still-a-deadly-disease/) - The man recovered of the bite,The dog it was that died!—Oliver Goldsmith Unfortunately, this is untrue! An estimated 60,000 people die each year from rabies and most cases are due to dog bites. Rabies affects largely the poor rural populations of Africa and Asia, in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in Sri Lanka and Thailand, the
- [<i>Echinococcus granulosus</i>, the sheepdog worm](https://hekint.org/2024/06/24/echinococcus-granulosus-the-sheepdog-worm/) - In the days when Britain ruled the waves and its colonies, some sheep from Thomas Hardy's Wessex and other counties followed their masters to the antipodes instead of stupidly jumping off a cliff.1 They multiplied in the sun and produced much wool, some of which was later returned to England under the imperial preference system
- [Girolamo Fracastoro and syphilis](https://hekint.org/2024/08/26/girolamo-fracastoro-and-syphilis/) - What special attributes of a Veronese physician made him a suitable subject for the renowned artist Titian?
- [Sulfonamides: The first synthetic antibacterial agents](https://hekint.org/2024/12/19/sulfonamides-the-first-synthetic-antibacterial-agents/) - Few discoveries in medicine have a more interesting history than the introduction of the sulfonamides into clinical medicine.1 I feel somehow part of this process only because, having suffered from some febrile illness as a little boy, I distinctly remember being given a medicine that went by the name of “rubiazol” and turned the urine
- [Book review: <i>A history of vaccines and anti-vaxxers</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/01/30/book-review-a-history-of-vaccines-and-anti-vaxxers/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Infectious diseases have been a scourge throughout human history. The first recorded epidemic was of the plague that occurred in Athens from 430–427 BC, chronicled in the writings of Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War. In nineteenth-century Britain, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, typhoid, measles, smallpox, and cholera were major
- [Shingles](https://hekint.org/2025/02/27/shingles/) - JMS PearceHull, England The physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia in the second century AD described a painful skin eruption that typically followed a band-like or "girdle-like" pattern, which corresponds to the dermatomal pattern of shingles.1 The Greek word herpein means "to creep,” and zoster (Latin cingulum) means a girdle or belt, referring to the rash's unilateral
- [Gerhard Armauer Hansen's unethical person-to-person leprosy transmission experiment in 1879](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/gerhard-armauer-hansens-unethical-person-to-person-leprosy-transmission-experiment-in-1879/) - Douglas LanskaMadison, Wisconsin, United States Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen (1841–1912)1 is remembered for his discovery in 1873 of Mycobacterium leprae as the causative agent of leprosy. However, Hansen’s legacy also includes unethical behavior for which he was convicted and lost his post at the Leprosy Hospital in Bergen, Norway (although in a legal-political compromise
- [Below deck and breathless: Pneumonia’s toll on seafarers](https://hekint.org/2025/07/28/below-deck-and-breathless-pneumonias-toll-on-seafarers/) - Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia In the tight, damp quarters of historical tall ships on the open sea, pneumonia was a common occurrence. More than just an unfortunate illness, it was often a death sentence, preying upon the weakened and crowded bodies of sailors, soldiers, convicts, and emigrants. Although less sensational than scurvy and not as
- [Vernian foresight: Anti-infective cryotherapy from science fiction to standard of care](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/vernian-foresight-anti-infective-cryotherapy-from-science-fiction-to-standard-of-care/) - In his writing, Jules Verne anticipated medical advances such as telemedicine, treatment of decompression sickness, and proactive preventive medicine.
- [Wasting away: The silent death of tuberculosis at sea](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/wasting-away-the-silent-death-of-tuberculosis-at-sea/) - For surgeons at sea, consumption was all too real: patients coughed up blood, complained of chest pains and side aches, and suffered from fevers and...
- [The British Army and disease in Kipling’s "Cholera Camp"](https://hekint.org/2025/12/01/the-british-army-and-disease-in-kiplings-cholera-camp/) - Cristóbal S. Berry-CabánFort Bragg, North Carolina, United States Rudyard Kipling's writing is inseparable from the British Empire in India, offering a vivid examination at how imperial power, military life, and disease collided. Among the many diseases that plagued the region, cholera was especially terrifying. Kipling's “Cholera Camp” is a grim narrative poem told from the perspective of
- [Mental illness, conscience, and time in the fiction of Peter Swanson](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/mental-illness-conscience-and-time-in-the-fiction-of-peter-swanson/) - Stephen McWilliams Dublin, Ireland In Peter Swanson’s fifth novel, Before She Knew Him, Hen and Lloyd move in next door to Mira and Matthew in West Dartford, Massachusetts. Hen soon suspects her new neighbor of murder, but has trouble convincing people because her own history of mental illness makes her an unreliable witness in the eyes
- [In praise of speleology](https://hekint.org/2025/12/29/in-praise-of-speleology/) - As freshmen at the university, we were advised to join a society or club in order to expand our horizons through what later became known as a liberal education. So, my classmate Pete convinced me to join the speleological society and suggested we should explore the Jenolan Caves, a major tourist attraction in New South
- [George Gordon Lord Byron and his limp](https://hekint.org/2018/05/15/george-gordon-lord-byron-and-his-limp/) - JMS PearceHull, UK Few would dispute that Lord Byron (Fig 1) was both a poetic prodigy and a flamboyant rogue. George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788–1824), was born on 22 January 1788 at Holles Street, London, son of Captain John (“Mad Jack”) Byron and his second wife, Catherine, née Gordon. John Byron was a
- [Somerset Maugham](https://hekint.org/2021/04/16/somerset-maugham/) - JMS Pearce Hull, England I have two professions, not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress; when I get tired of one I spend the night with the other.—Anton Chekov, 1888 As a graduate who abandoned medicine in favor of writing and other careers ranging from poetry to piracy, Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
- [Plain Words, or pandemic medical gobbledygook](https://hekint.org/2020/11/23/plain-words-or-pandemic-medical-gobbledygook/) - JMS PearceHull, England The great essayist and philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) once said: “Words, when written, crystallize history; their very structure gives permanence to the unchangeable past.” I suggest that the problems posed by writers who fail to convey meaning are not new.1,2 As long ago as 1713 the Scriblerus Club was founded to ridicule
- [Patrick Branwell Brontë (1817–1848): A tale of aspiration and decline](https://hekint.org/2017/08/11/patrick-branwell-bronte-1817-1848-tale-aspiration-decline/) - JMS PearceHull, England On the bleak, rocky, windswept Yorkshire moors is the famous Brontës’ parsonage of St Michael and All Angels' Church, Haworth. Here the celebrated Brontë sisters wrote their varied poetry and tales of romance, repressed passions, and frustrated love. This year (2017) marks 200 years since the birth of their brother, Patrick Branwell
- [Thomas Sydenham, “The English Hippocrates”](https://hekint.org/2020/08/13/thomas-sydenham-the-english-hippocrates/) - JMS PearceEast Yorks, UK Still Fever burns, and all her skill defiesTill Sydenham's wisdom plays a double part,Quells the disease and helps the failing Art.—From a poem on plague by John Locke, 1668 From Hippocrates, “Father Of Medicine,” to William Osler, “Father Of Modern Medicine,” plaudits for doctors abound and venerate their varied virtues. Thomas
- [The neurology of Emperor Claudius](https://hekint.org/2024/09/10/the-neurology-of-emperor-claudius/) - JMS PearceHull, England Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC – AD 54) (Fig 1) was a Roman emperor from AD 41 to 54.1 His eventful life was revivified in Robert Graves’s much-admired fictionalized autobiography.2,3 Although one of the most successful Julio-Claudian emperors after Augustus, he is perhaps more widely known for his physical disabilities.
- [Paul Pierre Broca](https://hekint.org/2021/11/18/paul-pierre-broca/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom At the turn of the nineteenth century, knowledge of how the brain worked was largely conjectural. Intelligence, memory, language, and motor and sensory functions had not been localized. The physiologist Flourens, promoting the notion of “cerebral equipotentiality,” concluded, “The cerebral cortex functions as an indivisible whole . . . an
- [Lumbar puncture](https://hekint.org/2022/08/15/lumbar-puncture/) - JMS PearceHull, England Access to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in life as an aid to diagnosis proved impossible until lumbar puncture. Galen of Pergamon (AD 130–200) failed to recognize CSF; he described a vaporous, not aqueous, humor that he called περιττώματα (residues) in the cerebral ventricles. Cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles was probably first shown by
- [Leonardo's <i>Vitruvian Man</i>](https://hekint.org/2020/07/30/leonardos-vitruvian-man/) - JMS PearceEngland, UK Second only to his Mona Lisa, the most famous drawing in the world of art is perhaps Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) Vitruvian Man. Leonardo was the illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant girl. He was named after his birthplace Vinci (at Anchiano) near Florence. He became a painter, draftsman, sculptor,
- [When empathy strikes and the curtain falls](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/when-empathy-strikes-and-the-curtain-falls/) - Spring 2016, Yasmine Koukaz, Education, Lebanese, improvisation, Hektoen
- [To Nurse - Hospital Halls - Breath - and more](https://hekint.org/2017/02/24/to-nurse-hospital-halls-breath-and-more-2/) - Carol BattagliaChicago, Illinois To nurse Hospital halls To CareTo SolaceTo TouchTo FeelTo HurtTo NeedTo Heal, othersas well as ourselves. I have walked these hospital hallsfor many years now. Thousands ofsteps, thousands of words, it’s nowonder I’m tired. Talked out.The emotions of others swirl aroundme. Some happy, some relief, someburdened with grief. Sometimes Iturn a corner
- [The castrati: A physician's perspective, part 2](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/the-castrati-a-physicians-perspective-part-2/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The first half of this article was previously published in Hektoen International, Summer 2010, as The castrati: A physician’s perspective, part I Medical aspects In this second part, we turn to the medical aspects of our subject and questions of by whom and by what methods were these operations performed.
- [Washer of the dead](https://hekint.org/2017/01/31/washer-of-the-dead/) - She felt she could serve her people best at Temple University Hospital, right in the heartland of black misery.
- [If I ruled the world](https://hekint.org/2017/03/06/if-i-ruled-the-world/) - George DuneaChicago, IL BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL - VOLUME 325 - NOVEMBER 30, 2002 In the first year of my dictatorship I will ban sugar coated doughnuts, atonal music, phenylbutazone, and hospital public relations departments. With the ruthlessness of irrational dictators I will outlaw multivitamin pills, ties with horizontal stripes, malpractice lawyers, useless expensive drugs, and
- [Medieval medical diagrams: Meanings, audiences, and functions](https://hekint.org/2017/01/24/medieval-medical-diagrams-meanings-audiences-and-functions/) - Sara Oberg Stradal, Summer 2013, Art Essays, John of Arderne, Zodiac Man, Vein Man, Hektoen
- [An ancient oath with modern significance](https://hekint.org/2017/03/07/an-ancient-oath-with-modern-significance/) - Emmanuel UgokweSIA Africa and Society for Young Writers, Nigeria Southeast and SouthSouth About 400 BCE Hippocrates, commonly known as the father of medicine, wrote the Hippocratic oath. That noble, ethical creed still guides the medical profession. Is that what you have been taught? If so, you are not alone. But is it strictly true? The facts suggest
- [<i>Paradise Lost</i> – John Milton](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/paradise-lost-john-milton/) - George Dunea, Adam, Eve, expulsion of paradise, Art Flashes, Summer 2016
- [The lady writer and the Valkyrie: Magda Szabo’s novel <i>The Door</i>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/the-lady-writer-and-the-valkyrie-magda-szabos-novel-the-door/) - In perhaps less dramatic ways, many caregivers, both professionals and family members, find themselves in similar situations.
- [Comics as a means of observation and reflection](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/comics-as-a-means-of-observation-and-reflection/) - Comics in medicine tell a story, educate, reflect, observe, heal, and help introduce humor into how we understand medical conditions and clinical contexts.
- [Pascal's disease](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/pascals-disease/) - Bo LaestadiusStockholm, Sweden The French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal was born in 1623. At the age of twelve he had already studied Euclid's geometry on his own and had written a paper about sound waves. A few years later he designed and built a calculator. In mathematics he has given his name to
- [The castrati: A physician's perspective, part 1](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/the-castrati-a-physicians-perspective-part-1/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States A modified version of this paper was presented on March 1, 2010 to the Chicago Literary Club. "The castrati: a physician's perspective" will appear in two installments. The first one in this issue details the history, sociology and musical history relevant to the rise of the castrato in the 17th
- [Carl Linnaeus as dietitian and pediatrician](https://hekint.org/2025/12/22/carl-linnaeus-as-dietitian-and-pediatrician/) - Göran WettrellLund, Sweden Carl Linnaeus as pediatrician Carl Linnaeus is best known as a botanist through his classification of the sexual system of plants and taxonomy. His interest in botany was noticed from a young age at Växjö Gymnasium by his teacher, provincial physician Johan Rothman, who instructed the young student in botany and medicine.
- [Breese Nursing Home: An exploration of humanity and love](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/breese-nursing-home-an-exploration-of-humanity-and-love/) - Ellen JantzenNewport Beach, California, USA I attended a nursing home Christmas party at the Breese Nursing Home in Illinois the week before Christmas, 2010 and was very moved by the residents and their families; it was a life-changing event for me. Before, while visiting my mother-in-law, I would divert my eyes when passing residents. Somehow
- [The 8076th: A hospital with marching orders](https://hekint.org/2017/02/05/the-8076th-a-hospital-with-marching-orders/) - Abigail ClineGeorgia, Augusta, United States November 22 was an unusually cold day at the American hospital in Kumchon County. Otherwise, it was business as usual in the sixty-bed facility. The doctors were scrubbing for surgery, nurses were moving patients among the wards, X-ray technicians were developing radiographs, and the pharmacy was dispensing prescriptions. There was
- [St. Patrick's Hospital: A legacy of Jonathan Swift](https://hekint.org/2017/02/23/st-patricks-hospital-a-legacy-of-jonathan-swift/) - St. Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin, founded in 1745 in Ireland by the bequest of Jonathan Swift, provides not-for-profit mental health services.
- [Oppression in nursing practice](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/oppression-in-nursing-practice/) - Denise PasiekaEdmonton, Alberta, Canada Oppression is the dehumanization of another and is often viewed as a negative result of power. It occurs when there are efforts to reduce, confine, and discipline people into subordination.1 Oppressive behaviours are noted in nursing practice today but are often not questioned; instead, they are accepted as innate truth and the
- [A coffee many years later](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/a-coffee-many-years-later/) - Drita PuharićMakarska, Croatia I'm sitting in a small cafe bar waiting for my friend Marija whom I haven’t seen since high school. She left with her husband for Canada after the war. How long had it been since we’d seen each other? It seems like an eternity... I can't wait to see her. I close
- [Past, present, and future of psychedelic medicine](https://hekint.org/2021/10/15/past-present-and-future-of-psychedelic-medicine/) - Jennifer KeehnBaja California, Mexico While there are now more clinical trials than ever before on the therapeutic applications of psychedelics, the medicinal use of such substances is not new. Indigenous cultures worldwide have used plants, roots, vines, and fungi that produce altered states of consciousness in healing rituals for thousands of years. The contemporary study
- [<i>The Joys of Motherhood</i>: The classic Nigerian novel](https://hekint.org/2022/12/16/the-joys-of-motherhood-the-classic-nigerian-novel/) - Oyenike IlakaAlbany, New York The Joys of Motherhood is a Nigerian novel written by Buchi Emecheta in 1979. Emecheta was a Nigerian woman from the Igbo tribe. Born in 1944, she spent her childhood in Lagos. At sixteen, she married and immigrated to London, where she discovered her passion for writing. Unfortunately, her husband was
- [Faith in medicine](https://hekint.org/2022/12/16/faith-in-medicine/) - The basis of holistic medicine is to care for the entire human, system by system, in mind, body, and spirit.
- [A series of messages](https://hekint.org/2022/12/19/a-series-of-messages/) - I sat outside the ward in my white coat, trying to catch my breath through the KF94 mask. My grandmother was inside, also struggling to breathe.
- [Hemiplegic migraine, the monster](https://hekint.org/2022/12/22/hemiplegic-migraine-the-monster/) - Mary Shelley began to experience severe headaches in 1839. These headaches were persistent, varying in location and length and frequently recurring.
- [Compassion in the emergency room](https://hekint.org/2022/12/22/compassion-in-the-emergency-room/) - Turns out the Emergency Department can be a good place for healing after all.
- [White Australia: How white healthcare has affected Indigenous Australians](https://hekint.org/2023/01/03/white-australia-how-white-healthcare-has-affected-indigenous-australians/) - For Indigenous Australians, however, health outcomes are 2.3 times worse...This gap is stark and evident in mortality rates...
- [Blood and hate: The anti-Semitic origin of the fabled first transfusion](https://hekint.org/2023/01/10/blood-and-hate-the-anti-semitic-origin-of-the-fabled-first-transfusion/) - According to legend, his physician attempted the first recorded blood transfusion, transfusing the blood of three children into the deteriorating Pope.
- [From silks to science: The history of hematoxylin and eosin staining](https://hekint.org/2023/01/11/from-silks-to-science-the-history-of-hematoxylin-and-eosin-staining/) - Hematoxylin and eosin dyes (H&E) possess a profound history, which includes the fabric industry, pirates, fine art, and eventually histology.
- [Medicalization of death and dying: Room for growth in end-of-life care](https://hekint.org/2023/01/12/medicalization-of-death-and-dying-room-for-growth-in-end-of-life-care/) - In recent years, the way in which Americans cope with death and dying has evolved considerably and become institutionalized and over-medicalized.
- [Soul power](https://hekint.org/2023/01/12/soul-power/) - Much of the cuisine affiliated with modern-day soul food dates back to the era of American slavery.
- [Words](https://hekint.org/2023/01/20/words/) - My actual Spanish skills are apparent in the exam rooms of our small clinic in downtown San José, Costa Rica, as I struggle to connect with my patients...
- [A historical review of Crohn's disease](https://hekint.org/2023/01/23/a-historical-review-of-crohns-disease/) - While much is known today about the underlying pathology of Crohn's disease, historically, this condition was thought to be a form of tuberculosis.
- [The white-collar antisocial personality](https://hekint.org/2023/02/02/the-white-collar-antisocial-personality/) - An overlooked topic in psychiatry is “antisocial personality disorder” (ASPD) or “sociopathy," which evades recognition in higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
- [A day in the team room](https://hekint.org/2023/02/16/a-day-in-the-team-room/) - Two internal medicine interns slink in, yawning and bleary eyed, careful not to spill their coffee onto their well-worn scrubs.
- [Dr. David Hartley and the benevolent AI](https://hekint.org/2023/02/23/dr-david-hartley-and-the-benevolent-ai/) - Erik AndersonHouston, Texas Question posed to ChatGPT: What is the “Golden Rule”?ChatGPT answer*: The “Golden Rule” is a principle found in many different cultures and ethical traditions and often phrased as “Treat others as you would like to be treated.”1 Presently, artificial intelligence (AI) applications such as ChatGPT are exceptional at reiterating information, but do
- [Wounded healer](https://hekint.org/2023/02/27/wounded-healer/) - Since Plato, the notion of a sufferer helping the suffering has been proposed as one of the more skillful ways of helping a patient through an illness.
- [“You will be alright”](https://hekint.org/2023/02/27/you-will-be-alright/) - Swetha KannanAjman, United Arab Emirates “Will my daughter be alright?” asked the anxious mother, trying to hold back her tears. A young girl in her early twenties, so petite and frail that her body seemed to be like a sole pearl in a large sea. Her worrisome eyes met mine, screaming the same question—“Will I
- [The middle zone](https://hekint.org/2023/02/27/the-middle-zone/) - When I study medicine, I view myself as a painter working on a very large canvas. To an onlooker, the work may look dysfunctional.
- [The fall](https://hekint.org/2023/03/03/the-fall/) - Gazing through my night vision goggles at the green outlines of my teammates, we began to silently enter our sniper hide.
- [The climate cure: Treating tuberculosis in the nineteenth century](https://hekint.org/2023/03/06/the-climate-cure-treating-tuberculosis-in-the-nineteenth-century/) - Without standardized treatment, early 19th-century physicians began to endorse a new, unorthodox treatment for tuberculosis patients: the “climate cure.”
- [Henri Parinaud—French physician, composer, and humanitarian](https://hekint.org/2023/03/07/henri-parinaud-french-physician-composer-and-humanitarian/) - Beyond his eponymous syndromes, we might remember Henri Parinaud for the person that he was—a selfless & humanistic educator; a devoted army medical officer; a pianist, organist, and composer...
- [The disease called poverty](https://hekint.org/2023/03/13/the-disease-called-poverty/) - In this country, a diagnosis like breast cancer is basically a death sentence. It is a disease itself, this thing called poverty.
- [A history of military medical services](https://hekint.org/2023/03/13/a-history-of-military-medical-services/) - The structure, procurement and philosophy of military medical services often reflect the societies which commissioned them.
- [The new pandemic](https://hekint.org/2023/03/17/the-new-pandemic/) - The light turns green, but just as you prepare to start the car, the world goes white. Then, you realize, “I am blind.”
- [Hadrian and Frank’s sign](https://hekint.org/2023/03/20/hadrian-and-franks-sign/) - Because this earlobe crease is not a conventional feature of early Roman works, it is assumed to be a physical feature specific to Hadrian himself.
- [Sea sick: Naval surgery and sanitation in eighteenth-century Britain](https://hekint.org/2023/03/23/sea-sick-naval-surgery-and-sanitation-in-eighteenth-century-britain/) - Medical treatment was dangerous and often extreme. Aboard a vessel, a barber-surgeon was responsible for the care and treatment of the wounded and ill.
- [A time to live and a time to die](https://hekint.org/2023/03/23/a-time-to-live-and-a-time-to-die/) - Amera HassanMinneapolis, Minnesota “Well to be honest, doc, I don’t quite care whether I do live or die.” He said it so nonchalantly and he was smiling too, a crow-footed wrinkle on either side of his eyes. When this patient was first admitted to the floor, he was in an undignified state, with flies wafting
- [Books, bangles, and bravado](https://hekint.org/2023/03/23/books-bangles-and-bravado/) - Jill KarNew Delhi, India Anandibai Joshee (Anandi) set sail from India at the age of eighteen. Bartering her bangles for books, she traded convention for an education, which was considered shameful in nineteenth-century India.1 In doing so, she was the first Indian woman to become a physician (Fig. 1). Born to a traditional Hindu Brahmin
- [Can headless martyrs really walk? The belief in cephalophores in the Middle Ages](https://hekint.org/2023/03/30/can-headless-martyrs-really-walk-the-belief-in-cephalophores-in-the-middle-ages/) - To medieval theologians and commoners alike, the souls of martyrs could have been easily conceived to control the actions of a maimed and decapitated body.
- [The history of Indian medicine and its impact on modern practice](https://hekint.org/2023/04/06/the-history-of-indian-medicine-and-its-impact-on-modern-practice/) - Kahan MehtaGotri, Vadodara, India India has a rich tradition of medicine that has evolved over the centuries. One such medical practice is Ayurveda, a system that has been used in India for over 3,000 years.1 Ayurveda has its roots in mythology, and the story of the Ashwini Kumars is a testament to the role of
- [Through hardship comes success—Life of Adolph Kussmaul](https://hekint.org/2023/04/06/through-hardship-comes-success-life-of-adolph-kussmaul/) - Hina HaqCayon, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean Adolph Kussmaul was born in Graben, Germany in 1822.1 He came from a long line of physicians and grew up in a beautiful place where miles of lush vegetation stretched out to nurture crops and create homes for pasture.2 Although he was born into privilege, he had to
- [The Doctors' Trial and the Nuremberg Code](https://hekint.org/2023/04/06/the-doctors-trial-and-the-nuremberg-code/) - Shabrina JarrellCharleston, West Virginia, United States Tracing back to the Hippocratic Oath, which dates to around 400 BC, the principle of autonomy has been fundamental to the concept of informed consent.1,2 The Oath, a pledge historically taken by physicians, outlines several guarding principles of medical ethics. Although it did not specifically mention informed consent, it
- [Electroconvulsive therapy: Misunderstood, yet effective](https://hekint.org/2023/04/10/electroconvulsive-therapy-misunderstood-yet-effective/) - Angelina KohMelbourne, Australia Introduction Amongst all the treatments in psychiatry, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is perhaps the most misunderstood and controversial.1 Its portrayal in popular media and misuse in history have contributed to its reputation, despite ECT being an effective treatment for severe and refractory affective and psychotic disorders. This review aims to uncover the origins
- [Ondine's curse: You sleep, you die](https://hekint.org/2023/04/13/ondines-curse-you-sleep-you-die/) - Trisha KesavanTamil Nadu, India In the 16th century, philosopher Paracelsus wrote about undines as nymphs that gained souls by marrying humans.1 According to German mythology, Ondine or Undine was a water nymph (de la Motte Fouque’s version) who married a knight, Huldbrand, and gained a soul, but would be doomed to die if he showed
- [Keeping corpses company](https://hekint.org/2023/04/13/keeping-corpses-company/) - Nater AkpenMakurdi, Benue State, Nigeria Inspired by an error where he had misjudged the time since death—not by hours or days—by 112 years,1 William Bass set up the Anthropological Research Facility in Tennessee. His request to his dean was simple: Give me some land to put dead bodies on. His research facility, colloquially called the
- [Remembering your COVID birth](https://hekint.org/2023/04/17/remembering-your-covid-birth/) - Laura KahnChicago, IL The thing about having your first baby at the beginning of a pandemic is that everything seems equally strange, because you don’t have a prior kid for comparison. I wait anxiously for my son to poop, I wear a mask when I leave the house, I sanitize everything, I wake every hour—it
- [Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor, DDS](https://hekint.org/2023/04/17/dr-lucy-hobbs-taylor-dds/) - Natalie HorakovaHradec Kralove, Czech Republic "I am a New Yorker by birth, but I love my adopted country—the West. To it belongs the credit of making it possible for women to be recognized in the dental profession on equal terms with men.”—Dr. Lucy Hobbs Taylor1 Lucy Beaman Hobbs was born on March 14, 1833 in
- [Florence Nightingale](https://hekint.org/2023/04/24/florence-nightingale/) - Abigail RichardsonSheffield, UK Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), the British nurse who became known as the “Lady with the Lamp,” is remembered for her work during the Crimean War and as a statistician and public health advocate.1 Her lifelong dedication to nursing led to her being the first female Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (1858) and
- [The art of war and medicine](https://hekint.org/2023/04/24/the-art-of-war-and-medicine/) - Xinxin WuOmaha, Nebraska, United States War and medicine are two vastly different fields, yet they share a common goal. In war, soldiers risk their lives to defend their country; in medicine, healthcare professionals work to heal the sick and prevent illness. Both groups deserve our gratitude and admiration. Hai Wan Wu was the name of
- [Blake’s autonomous newborn: Neonatal mortality in “Infant Joy” and “Infant Sorrow”](https://hekint.org/2023/04/27/blakes-autonomous-newborn-neonatal-mortality-in-infant-joy-and-infant-sorrow/) - Zoya GurmDetroit, Michigan, United States William Blake (1757–1827) was an artist, poet, and progenitor of the Romantic era. Romanticism represents the artistic and intellectual movement responding to the Enlightenment, industrialization, and political revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.1 A prominent theme in the work of Blake and other Romantic poets is an
- [William Webster, the first modern Canadian academic anesthesiologist](https://hekint.org/2023/05/01/william-webster-the-first-modern-canadian-academic-anesthesiologist/) - Kush PatelAjax, Canada Until the early twentieth century, anesthetics were a black box, and even though ether and chloroform were commonly used, their physiological effects were little known and felt nothing short of wizardry.1 No wonder Dr. John Warren cried “this is no humbug!” on seeing a patient open his eyes for the first time
- [Ancient remedies for modern times](https://hekint.org/2023/05/04/ancient-remedies-for-modern-times/) - Vicky LiDallas, Texas, United States “To a synthetic chemist, the complex molecules of nature are as beautiful as any of her other creations.”– Elias James Corey (Nobel Lecture, 1990)1 As the Vietnam War raged through the 1960s, the Northern Vietnamese army faced its greatest foe to date: drug-resistant malaria. Malaria typically causes cyclical waves of
- [Discovering genius: The neurobiological substrate of intelligence](https://hekint.org/2023/05/04/discovering-genius-the-neurobiological-substrate-of-intelligence/) - Helena LjuljZagreb, Croatia “It is by the shape and size of the forehead that we are to judge of the extent of a man's understanding… When the frontal vein appears distinctly in the midst of a forehead, open, uniform, and regularly arched, it announces extraordinary talent.”1 According to the eighteenth century physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater,
- [Galactagogues in postpartum rituals](https://hekint.org/2023/05/05/galactagogues-in-postpartum-rituals/) - Puja PersaudTrue Blue, Grenada, West Indies Having a baby demands drastic changes in lifestyle, eating habits, and sleeping patterns. Many cultures across the world practice postpartum rituals that “allow the mother to be ‘mothered’,” and help to “facilitate the transition into motherhood.”1 For generations, the Indian descendants residing in Guyana of South America have helped
- [Reclamation](https://hekint.org/2023/05/08/reclamation/) - Natalie PerlovPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Like many people, my first experience with death was losing a grandparent. I remember my parents organizing my late grandfather’s affairs, noting our religious practice of having as few people as possible touch the body before the burial. Our culture emphasizes community and togetherness in life, yet my grandfather died
- [Lassa: The small town with the mark of death](https://hekint.org/2023/05/08/lassa-the-small-town-with-the-mark-of-death/) - Patrick AshinzeIrrua, Edo State, Nigeria Little has been written about Lassa, a small town plagued by terrorism in northeastern Nigeria. No one has published even a cursory description of its topography or demography, its markets, schools, infrastructure, or the people who come from it. It is now known only as the site of origin of
- [I’m not a good man or a bad man, I just follow orders](https://hekint.org/2023/05/09/im-not-a-good-man-or-a-bad-man-i-just-follow-orders/) - Luisa Alanís SáenzMexico City, Mexico “Shoot, they told me. I obeyed.I’ve always been obedient. By obedienceI conquered my high rank…I’m not a good man or a bad manI just follow orders”1– José Emilio Pacheco (my translation) In 1942, a man designed efficient plans to transport hundreds of thousands of people. Never meeting them, Adolf Eichmann
- [Synesthesia, empathy, and the “art” of medicine](https://hekint.org/2023/05/12/synesthesia-empathy-and-the-art-of-medicine/) - Maeve PascoeCleveland, Ohio, United States “Do my name next!” people would exclaim as I tried to explain that I am not “doing” anything, I merely perceive things differently. Not many medical conditions double as parlor tricks, but the benign condition of synesthesia is unique in its ability to astonish. For much of my childhood, I
- [Tales of a sickler](https://hekint.org/2023/05/15/tales-of-a-sickler/) - Phebe SalamiGwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria This piece is a work of fiction inspired by real-life stories of sickle cell disease. There are a thousand and one ways to tell a story. I guess this is just another one of those ways, my own way of telling this story... I wished I was like all the other
- [The secrecy behind JFK’s autoimmune disease](https://hekint.org/2023/05/16/the-secrecy-behind-jfks-autoimmune-disease/) - Jude TunyiColumbus, Ohio, United States Most Americans are familiar with the life and death of John F. Kennedy (JFK), but they may not know about his celiac disease and autoimmune polyglandular syndrome (APS) type 2. Neither condition has been proven by autoantibody tests, but from examining available medical records, several authorities now believe he dealt with
- [Entomological evidence and tales of the dead](https://hekint.org/2023/05/24/entomological-evidence-and-tales-of-the-dead/) - Srilakshmi ChidambaramManila, Philippines Picture the scene: A body, blue with bloat, sprawled across the floor. The skin is sloughed off and peeling; fat drips through the carpet. The room is warm with the sickly-sweet stench of decay. A living, seething mass of flesh-eating maggots swarms the body. Blowflies. Your boot touches a hardened pupa casing.
- [From Sophocles to the frontline](https://hekint.org/2023/05/24/from-sophocles-to-the-frontline/) - Alexandra PliakopanouIoannina, Greece In the deserted misty land of Lemnos, a wailing voice echoes, emanating from a wounded warrior abandoned by his comrades nine years ago. Philoctetes, the titular character of Sophocles’ 409 BC play and once a great hero of the Greeks, now lies in misery with a festering wound that oozes pus and
- [The anorexia of aging](https://hekint.org/2023/05/24/the-anorexia-of-aging/) - Alexandra MignucciAlbany, New York, United States While working at a medical home for patients with Alzheimer’s, I became fascinated by the difference in how much food the patients would eat when sitting at the table as a group versus when I would feed them in their rooms or on the couch. There was no difference
- [The <i>sophia</i> and <i>phronesis</i> of modern medicine](https://hekint.org/2023/05/24/the-sophia-and-phronesis-of-modern-medicine/) - Meaghan O’ConnorDurham, North Carolina, United States My first clinical experience was working as a hospice aide my sophomore year of college. During that experience I watched my first patient suffer—physically and spiritually—and eventually die. Not bound by the time constraints of more formal medical settings, I was able to walk with my patient through her
- [Memento mori in medicine](https://hekint.org/2023/05/30/memento-mori-in-medicine/) - Stephanie JiangToronto, Ontario, Canada It is easy to believe that humankind’s greatest fear is death. From our humble beginnings to now modern-day society, we have learned that Death will always chase us. Few professions explore our mortality so candidly; in most Western occupations, death is seldom mentioned. Dying is spoken of in hushed tones, and
- [The physician’s guide to <i>The Garden of Earthly Delights</i>](https://hekint.org/2023/06/05/the-physicians-guide-to-the-garden-of-earthly-delights/) - Nora Fisher-CampbellPortland, Oregon, United States I have returned repeatedly to The Garden of Earthly Delights as a strange and fascinating representation of the human experience. The triptych, painted in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century by Hieronymus Bosch, depicts a fever-dream vision of Eden, Earth, and the Last Judgement.1 On the left panel, God
- [Xenotransplantation on Mount Kalilash](https://hekint.org/2023/06/05/xenotransplantation-on-mount-kalilash/) - Devanshi PatelRajkot, Gujarat, India According to Hindu mythology, Mount Kalilash in the Himalayas is the abode of Lord Shiva and his consort Parvati, along with their children Kartikeya and Ganesh.1 The latter son is the elephant-headed god of beginnings, intellectuals, bankers, scribes and authors.2 Many stories are associated with Ganesh’s birth and upbringing. In one
- [Howard A. Knox and intelligence testing on Ellis Island](https://hekint.org/2023/06/08/howard-a-knox-and-intelligence-testing-on-ellis-island/) - Carine TabakKansas City, Kansas, United States Between 1892 to 1924, twelve million men, women, and children entered the United States through the Ellis Island Immigration Center, making it the largest health screening facility in the US at the time.1,2 At first, immigrants were inspected to identify medical conditions, but changing economic and political forces shifted
- [Weighing medical evidence on a historical scale](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/weighing-medical-evidence-on-a-historical-scale/) - Philip WilsonPennsylvania, United States In 1992, a clinical discipline emerged under the name Evidence-based Medicine (EBM). Now well-known, EBM refers to the “conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients” (Sackett). Clinical expertise is combined with newly supported biomedical evidence obtained through systematic literature searches
- [The Medical Inkling: R.E. Havard, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien](https://hekint.org/2023/05/30/the-medical-inkling-r-e-havard-c-s-lewis-and-j-r-r-tolkien/) - Sarah O’DellIrvine, California, United States In a smoky back corner of an Oxford pub and the book-filled rooms of Magdalen College, the celebrated writing group known as the “Inklings” gathered, debated, and laughed throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Their literary impact has been tremendous, in part because of the incredible success of their two most prolific
- [Book review: <I>Island Dreams: Mapping an Obsession</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/02/10/book-review-of-island-dreams-mapping-an-obsession/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Gavin Francis is a Scottish doctor, author, and traveler who has worked in emergency medicine, family medicine, and as the resident doctor for the Antarctic survey, which resulted in a previous book. His wanderlust and way with words have been favorably compared to the late Bruce Chatwin. Island Dreams: Mapping
- [<I>Winston Churchill’s Illnesses</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/02/25/winston-churchills-illnesses/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Winston Churchill was one of the most important political figures of the twentieth century. As such, it is not surprising that he has been the subject of many biographies that have chronicled his life and many achievements, most notably the comprehensive eight-volume opus by British historian and Churchill scholar, Martin
- [Book review: <I>John Keats’ Medical Notebook</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/03/24/book-review-of-john-keats-medical-notebook/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom February 23, 2021 marked the bicentenary of the death of the great Romantic poet John Keats. Born in 1795, Keats lived a tragically short life, dying at the age of only twenty-five. It is perhaps little known that he first qualified as an apothecary doctor before giving up medicine for
- [Reconstructing memories and history in <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i> by Gabriel García Márquez](https://hekint.org/2021/09/21/reconstructing-memories-and-history-in-one-hundred-years-of-solitude-by-gabriel-garcia-marquez/) - Tonse N.K. RajuGaithersburg, Maryland, United States "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." In the opening sentence of his extraordinary masterpiece, Gabriel García Márquez distilled the recurring themes of One Hundred Years of Solitude1: the absurdity
- [Book review: <I>The Origins of Modern Science</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/05/12/book-review-of-the-origins-of-modern-science/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Science and medicine have long been intertwined: many advances in the field of medicine would not have been possible without prior knowledge of fundamental science. It is not surprising, therefore, that a medical historian would also find the history of science fascinating. In this book, Ofer Gal has described the
- [Peter Panum and the “geography of disease”](https://hekint.org/2021/08/18/peter-panum-and-the-geography-of-disease/) - Kathryne DycusMadrid, Spain In 1846, the Faroe Islands experienced an outbreak of measles, the likes of which had not been seen in sixty-five years. The Danish government called upon a newly graduated physician, Peter Ludwig Panum, to investigate and control its spread. Panum wrote of the experience in his seminal text, “Observations Made During the
- [Physicians as inventors](https://hekint.org/2025/12/18/physicians-as-inventors/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel “Research is four things: brains with which to think, eyes with which to see, machines with which to measure, and money.”—Albert Szent-Györgyi, 1937 Inventions can be created either following a sudden enlightenment (for which Claude Bernard coined the term être frappé—to be punched or after a long investigation). Relatively few physicians
- [The rhinoceros, threatened by extinction](https://hekint.org/2025/12/18/the-rhinoceros-threatened-by-extinction/) - Introduction Five rhino species survive across Africa and Asia. They are distinguished by their massive size, thick protective skin, and horns composed of keratin—the same protein as found in human hair and nails. The rhinos once roamed the savannas in large numbers but in more recent years have become the victims of climate and habitat
- [The hippopotamus in science and medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/12/18/the-hippopotamus-in-science-and-medicine/) - The broad-backed hippopotamusRests on his belly in the mud;Although he seems so firm to usHe is merely flesh and blood. Flesh-and-blood is weak and frail,Susceptible to nervous shock […]—TS Eliot, “The Hippopotamus” When a patient once asked me whether hippopotami ever suffer from high blood pressure, I dreamed that night I was sitting in my
- [The Queen’s quickening: The phantom pregnancies of Mary I](https://hekint.org/2022/01/11/the-queens-quickening-the-phantom-pregnancies-of-mary-i/) - Eve ElliotDublin, Ireland In November 1554, the people of England believed a miracle had taken place. Resplendent on her new throne, Queen Mary I, daughter of Henry VIII, proudly revealed that she was with child. She was thirty-seven (past the usual childbearing age in the Tudor era) and had only been married to her much
- [“Some little show of nail”: The health of Anne Boleyn](https://hekint.org/2019/07/29/some-little-show-of-nail-the-health-of-anne-boleyn/) - Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Of all the wives of England’s King Henry VIII, the most well known is Anne Boleyn. She is the woman who, one way or another, caused the split between Henry and Catherine of Aragon – and the split between England and the Catholic Church. She has been declared a martyr,
- [Louis XIV and his ailments](https://hekint.org/2019/03/21/louis-xiv-and-his-ailments/) - Introduction For over 300 years King Louis XIV has occupied a special place in the heart of every Frenchman. He brought glory to his country, extended its boundaries, and promoted the arts and letters so that French culture became second to none in Europe. For many decades his neighbors trembled at the sound of his
- [Philip the Handsome and the plague](https://hekint.org/2023/05/17/philip-the-handsome-and-the-plague/) - Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Philip of Habsburg was born in Bruges in 1478. He was the son of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, in a marriage that would ultimately extend control of the House of Austria over the Burgundian Netherlands. Philip was not yet four
- [The mysterious death of Margaret, child queen of Scotland](https://hekint.org/2023/09/05/the-mysterious-death-of-margaret-child-queen-of-scotland/) - Juliana MenegakisSt. Andrews, Scotland Upon the death of Alexander III of Scotland in 1286, the throne of Scotland passed to his four-year-old granddaughter Margaret. Only four years later, the young queen died, aged just seven. However, the exact details of her death are uncertain. When exactly did she die? And was her death a sudden
- [Charles VIII: The king who bumped his head](https://hekint.org/2019/02/25/the-king-who-bumped-his-head/) - Charles VIII was proclaimed king of France in 1470 at the age of thirteen and is remembered in history chiefly for invading Italy to assert his claim to the throne of Naples. He set in motion, by this invasion, a process that left Italy languishing under foreign domination for more than 300 years. During his
- [Matushka’s ordeal](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/matushkas-ordeal/) - Sarah Irawa, Catherine the Great, Spring 2016, infectious diseases, Hektoen
- [The death of King Mongkut](https://hekint.org/2023/06/09/the-death-of-king-mongkut/) - Parnreutai ChaiyasatBangkok, Thailand King Mongkut,1 the second son of King Rama II of Siam (now known as Thailand),2 spent most of his life in scholarship as a Buddhist monk before ascending to the throne. He studied traditional Siamese astrology, scientific astronomy, and mathematics. In August 1868, he predicted the time of a solar eclipse more
- [The death of Charles II](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/the-death-of-charles-ii/) - King Charles II of England, son of Charles I, grandson of Henri IV of Navarre and Marie de Medici, and great grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, was 18 years old when his father was deposed and executed on January 30, 1649. He reigned as king of England from 1660 to 1685. Charles was tall,
- [Chopin's heart](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/chopins-heart/) - Wilfred ArnoldKansas, United States In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birthday Frédéric Chopin was born near Warsaw, Poland in 1810. From 1831 he lived mostly in France, where he achieved international acclaim for his music despite a debilitating and life-shortening illness. He first began to cough up blood in 1835, and this eventually
- [Edward Lear](https://hekint.org/2021/10/28/edward-lear/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom How pleasant to know Mr Lear!Who has written such volumes of stuff!Some think him ill-tempered and queerBut a few think him pleasant enough.—Edward Lear 1879 Hundreds of famous people from every branch of life have been diagnosed or suspected—sometimes on dubious evidence—as sufferers from the symptom epilepsy. Edward Lear (1812–1888)
- [Robert Bentley Todd](https://hekint.org/2022/02/03/robert-bentley-todd/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Students of King's College Hospital London are familiar with the Todd Prize in Clinical Medicine and with Todd Ward. Robert Bentley Todd’s father, Charles Hawkes Todd, was a well-known surgeon of 3 Kildare Street Dublin. His mother was Elizabeth Bentley, a relative of the poet Oliver Goldsmith, who was himself
- [Wheeled chairs throughout the ages](https://hekint.org/2025/12/15/wheeled-chairs-throughout-the-ages/) - Mitchell BataviaNew York, New York, United States Wheeled chairs, which have enabled people with disabilities, injuries, and illnesses to engage more fully in society, have a long and somewhat imprecise history, spanning an evolution from wheelless vehicles such as litters to multi-wheeled mobile structures.1-3 Evidence of a beginning can be found on a fifth century
- [SubbaRow: Because he lived, you may live longer](https://hekint.org/2025/12/08/subbarow-because-he-lived-you-may-live-longer/) - Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States “You've probably never heard of Dr. Yellapragada SubbaRow. Yet because he lived you may be alive and well today. Because he lived you may live longer.”—Doron Kemp Antrim, April 19501 The first of Yellăprăgădā SubbăRow’s seminal contributions at Harvard was the colorimetric Fiske-SubbaRow assay for phosphorous in tissues. It led
- [Pulling up a chair: The past and future of the patient-physician relationship](https://hekint.org/2025/12/15/pulling-up-a-chair-the-past-and-future-of-the-patient-physician-relationship/) - Neal ChanBoston, Massachusetts, United States Pulling up a chair On my fourth year Cardiology rotation, I cared for an elderly patient with atrial fibrillation and worsening heart failure. On rounds, a plan was made to attempt cardioversion and pursue rhythm control of his atrial fibrillation with amiodarone. As we entered the room, we found a
- [The significant contributors to the history and development of Vietnam’s medicine sector](https://hekint.org/2021/08/11/the-significant-contributors-to-the-history-and-development-of-vietnams-medicine-sector/) - Tran Nguyen Ngoc NhuHo Chi Minh City, Vietnam Physicians have long held a high position in Vietnamese society. Among many who have improved the health of their local communities, five physicians have notably contributed to science and medicine in Vietnam and beyond. Master Tue Tinh (1330 - ?) Master Tue Tinh's real name was Nguyen
- [Four short literary incisions (Or how I began to write things that did not let me sleep)](https://hekint.org/2017/03/04/four-short-literary-incisions-or-how-i-began-to-write-things-that-did-not-let-me-sleep-2/) - Alzheimer's Disease, Catalina Florina Florescu, Coma, death, Fall 2013, Pain, Fiction, Hektoen
- [The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent](https://hekint.org/2020/01/13/the-international-federation-of-the-red-cross-and-red-crescent/) - Mawuli Tettey Ghana The Red Cross Society is a worldwide humanitarian and volunteer-based organization that protects human life and health by rendering assistance to anyone who may need it. In 1862, a Swiss man named Jean-Henri Dunant published a book titled A Memory of Solferino in which he called for the creation of national relief
- [“Fart Proudly”: Benjamin Franklin’s “Prize Question” of 1781](https://hekint.org/2025/12/11/fart-proudly-benjamin-franklins-prize-question-of-1781/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States One has no difficulty imagining that flatulence, flatus, or farting might have been a source of humor long before receiving any mention in the historical record. An early example of such humor appears in cuneiform writing of the Sumerians in 1900 BCE and can be traced forward in the
- [Helen Taussig](https://hekint.org/2025/12/11/helen-taussig/) - Matthew HillAbdullah MubarikJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Standing outside of the operating room, Helen Taussig was beside herself. Fifteen-month-old Eileen Saxon, a “blue baby” born with a congenital heart malformation that deprived the body of oxygenated blood, was undergoing a procedure that Taussig had conceived and recommended to the surgeon. Despite the surgeon’s success with
- [Life-giving doctors: The hard decision of self-surrender](https://hekint.org/2017/01/28/life-giving-doctors-the-hard-decision-of-self-surrender/) - María Belén EyheramonhoBuenos Aires, Argentina While thinking of medicine as an honorable profession and of the patient-doctor relationship under the light of the human dignity of every person, three legendary figures come to mind: Dr. Giuseppe Moscati, Dr. Gianna Beretta Molla, and Dr. Jérôme Lejeune. Throughout this essay, as I present a short biographical review
- [Strabismo di Venere—Michelangelo's <i>David</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/08/27/strabismo-di-venere-michelangelos-david/) - Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States It is one of the most recognizable sculptures in Western art, the work of an acclaimed Renaissance artist. For over 600 years, it has been viewed by millions of tourists and by millions more in photographs or books. Yet until recently, an obvious physical abnormality had gone largely unrecognized. Michelangelo’s
- [Plagues and prejudice](https://hekint.org/2020/04/22/plagues-and-prejudice/) - Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, missionaries, and deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles; the overthrow of
- [Richard J. Bing: Reflecting on a century of creativity and innovation](https://hekint.org/2020/08/25/richard-j-bing-reflecting-on-a-century-of-creativity-and-innovation/) - Joseph BurnsYehuda ShapirNew Hyde Park, New York, United States As the tenth anniversary of the passing of Dr. Richard J. Bing approaches, the occasion offers an opportune moment to reflect on the life and momentous achievements of an eminent cardiologist. Richard J. Bing was born in Nuremberg, Germany on October 12, 1909.1 His father was
- [They don't teach us that](https://hekint.org/2021/10/01/they-dont-teach-us-that/) - Evelyn PotochnyHershey, Pennsylvania, United States You called in your own medevac. You’d even tourniqueted both legs, or what was left of them. And when the Chinook kicked up all that dust and finally landed, you looked so—calm. Someone read each name and the litany of injuries while we watched each stretcher pass by, yours included—a
- [The Popes and the Black Death in Avignon](https://hekint.org/2025/12/08/the-popes-and-the-black-death-in-avignon/) - Avignon in southeastern France stands as one of Europe's most historically significant cities, commonly remembered as the seat of the Catholic papacy during the 14th century and for its famous bridge immortalized in song. It was a time of conflict and unstable conditions in Italy while the French King Philip IV was exerting pressure on
- [Turmeric: The golden spice](https://hekint.org/2025/12/08/turmeric-the-golden-spice/) - Ashutosh GuptaChicago, Illinois, United States Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a flowering plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It belongs to the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. Turmeric is called haldi in the Hindi language and is derived from a Sanskrit word, haridra, meaning “one that enhances health.” Turmeric stems (rhizomes) with multiple buds and
- [Mustard: History of the yellow seed](https://hekint.org/2020/02/18/mustard-history-of-the-yellow-seed/) - Carol ShermanChicago, Illinois, United States The National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin1 describes itself as having over 5,600 mustards. They originate from all fifty states of the United States and from more than seventy countries. This museum, casting itself as midcentury, exhibits old curios and vintage signage. The museum also provides a place to sit
- [Enrique IV of Castile, The Impotent](https://hekint.org/2025/12/04/enrique-iv-of-castile-the-impotent/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Enrique IV was born on January 5, 1425, in Valladolid, Spain. He was the son of John II of Castile and Maria of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand I of Aragon. When John II died on 20 July 1454, Enrique was proclaimed king the following day. Prince Enrique had married Blanche of
- [Sri Lanka, a pearl of the Indian Ocean](https://hekint.org/2025/12/04/sri-lanka-a-pearl-of-the-indian-ocean/) - Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean just south of the Indian subcontinent. Once called Ceylon, its history spans over 2,500 years, beginning with the arrival of Prince Vijaya from India in the sixth century BCE. In the third century BCE, the Emperor Ashoka's son introduced Buddhism. The island’s position along ancient
- [Born with a caul: Fact and fiction](https://hekint.org/2025/12/01/born-with-a-caul-fact-and-fiction/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States In the opening paragraphs of Charles Dickens’ 1850 novel David Copperfield, the titular narrator David Copperfield informs us that he was “born with a caul.” He relates further that the caul was advertised in the newspapers at the “low price” of fifteen guineas in hopes that a sea-faring buyer
- [Charles Darwin’s illnesses on HMS <i>Beagle</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/12/01/charles-darwins-illnesses-on-hms-beagle/) - JMS PearceHull, England Charles Darwin (1809–1882) for much of his life was subject to illness and periods of invalidity. Their cause has been widely debated.1 Darwin joined the second voyage of HMS Beagle in December 1831. Under Captain FitzRoy, its prime purposes were to study weather systems and to survey and chart new territories. It
- [Along the Silk Road in Central Asia](https://hekint.org/2025/12/01/along-the-silk-road-in-central-asia/) - The historical Silk Road was a vast network of land and sea routes that connected China with the West for over 2,000 years, facilitating the exchange of silk, spices, gold, and also ideas until the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Its origins have been attributed to the Han Dynasty, and Samarkand and Bukhara have long
- [Francisco Javier de Balmis and the first international vaccination campaign](https://hekint.org/2025/12/01/francisco-javier-de-balmis-and-the-first-international-vaccination-campaign/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Smallpox was a human scourge until the early nineteenth century. It had caused almost half a million deaths in Europe alone when Edward Jenner introduced vaccination into clinical practice in 1798 with his famous publication “An enquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae” and the 1801 publication “The
- [Darwin at the Chinese opera](https://hekint.org/2017/01/24/darwin-at-the-chinese-opera/) - It was that essential function of art that allowed me to “see” the moustache for the first time and understand its communicatory function as a barbe bouche.
- [Evolution from recapitulation theory to Neural Darwinism](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/evolution-from-recapitulation-theory-to-neural-darwinism/) - JMS PearceLondon, United Kingdom Early evolutionary theorists noted that the evolution of the brain, its structural organization, and microscopic structure appeared to develop concurrently with human anatomy through the process of evolution. This understanding of the evolution of the brain was heavily influenced by both the theories of phylogeny, which discusses this evolutionary lineage of
- [Roma (Gypsies): History and medical aspects](https://hekint.org/2025/11/24/roma-gypsies-history-and-medical-aspects/) - Historical research indicates that the Roma people (also referred to as Romani or the pejorative “gypsies”) originated in India, contrary to earlier beliefs that they came from Egypt. Linguistic studies have unequivocally confirmed their language’s Indo-Aryan roots and similarities to Sanskrit, Hindi, and other languages of India. Over centuries of migration through Persia, Armenia, and
- [John Berryman, poetry, and addiction](https://hekint.org/2025/11/24/john-berryman-poetry-and-addiction/) - Alan BleakleyPlymouth, United Kingdom “Starts again always in Henry’s ears / The little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime,” writes American poet John Berryman (1914–1972) in “Dream Song 29.”1 From a life of heavy drinking that served to mask the pain of chronic depression arose the legacy of his Dream Songs, told from the perspective
- [Eugenics and the perfusion pump: Lindbergh’s controversial medical legacy](https://hekint.org/2025/11/24/eugenics-and-the-perfusion-pump-lindberghs-controversial-medical-legacy/) - Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States Following his successful solo trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of Saint Louis in 1927, aviator Charles Augustus Lindbergh became an international celebrity. He was Time magazine’s very first Man of the Year in 1927, and was seen as an American hero for over a decade.1 One of Lindbergh’s greatest achievements—the
- [Siberia medical](https://hekint.org/2025/11/20/siberia-medical/) - Siberia is a vast expanse of forests, tundra, and remote settlements that covers 5.1 million square miles of land and stretches from the Urals to the Pacific and from the Arctic to the southern steppes. It encompasses roughly 77 percent of Russia's territory but remains sparsely populated. Approximately 36 million people reside in Siberia, primarily
- [Outwitting "Typhoid Mary"](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/outwitting-typhoid-mary/) - Lisa Mulleneaux, Summer 2016, Typhoid Mary, Mary Mallon, infectious diseases, Hektoen
- [Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543)](https://hekint.org/2022/01/26/nicolaus-copernicus-1473-1543/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Nicolaus Copernicus was born on 19 Feb 1473 in the Prussian town of Torun, now part of Poland. He studied at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow, and although his main subjects were mathematics and astronomy, he also immersed himself in philosophy and read the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Euclid.
- [Comparison of ancient Mesopotamian and Hippocratic medicine](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/comparison-of-ancient-mesopotamian-and-hippocratic-medicine/) - Burton AndersenChicago, Illinois, United States The accomplishments of the ancient Greeks in literature, science, and government have been widely recognized and admired. Ancient Greek medicine has also been held in high esteem; however, their practice of medicine merits careful examination and comparison with other ancient medical cultures. Different cultures have employed in various ways the
- [J.I. Guillotin: Reformer and humanitarian](https://hekint.org/2017/01/29/j-i-guillotin-reformer-and-humanitarian/) - It is a strange quirk of fortune that the name of a reformer and humanitarian who spent his life in the search of social justice should have become associated with a device used to decapitate people. Yet such was the fate of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Trained in his youth as a Jesuit, he then went
- [A life cut short](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/a-life-cut-short/) - Joshua Baru, Benjamin Mba, Schwartz Center Rounds, Hektoen
- [Airs and graces: Humphry Davy and science as performance](https://hekint.org/2021/09/10/airs-and-graces-humphry-davy-and-science-as-performance/) - Alan BleakleySennen, West Cornwall, United Kingdom The setting is 1799 in Clifton, Bristol, in the southwest of England; and there is something important in the air. A “Pneumatic Institute” has been set up to investigate the potential uses of newly isolated gases such as nitrous oxide in medicine. Humphry Davy, a young, ambitious scientist from
- [A Cold War vaccine: Albert Sabin, Russia, and the oral polio vaccine](https://hekint.org/2020/05/11/a-cold-war-vaccine-albert-sabin-russia-and-the-oral-polio-vaccine/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States In the midst of the 2020 Covid–19 pandemic, when international scientific cooperation seems to be the order of the day, it is heartening to recall that during the height of Cold War tensions between the USSR and the United States, collaboration between an American virologist and his Russian counterparts
- [Syndrome de Lasthénie de Ferjol](https://hekint.org/2020/06/17/syndrome-de-lasthenie-de-ferjol/) - Krishna BadamiChristchurch, New Zealand Several years ago we saw a young woman who had an iron deficiency anemia, caused not by blood loss from menstruation (a common cause of iron deficiency anemia in females), but by repeatedly drawing her own blood by venipuncture and discarding it. This type of anemia caused by a specific self-harm
- [A proliferation of monsters: Art of the weird as expressions of anxiety in Britain and Japan](https://hekint.org/2018/03/15/proliferation-monsters-art-weird-expressions-anxiety-britain-japan/) - Steve WheelerGreenwich, London, England The human fascination with fear of the unknown has been documented in art and literature across civilization for centuries. In every culture, this has manifested itself in the form of creatures as bizarre as they are terrifying. Since the evolution of language, humans have invented and told stories about monsters to
- [From the goddess of healing to hair of the dog: The role of canines in health myth and fact](https://hekint.org/2018/12/06/from-the-goddess-of-healing-to-hair-of-the-dog-the-role-of-canines-in-health-myth-and-fact/) - Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, USA The landscape of Mesopotamia was riddled with challenges, but for every problem that arose there was a deity to petition. Of these perhaps the most well-known was Inanna or Ishtar, who influenced fertility goddesses across cultures.1 But when it came to issues of health, the people were more likely to turn to
- [Hans Christian Andersen, James Young Simpson, and ether frolics](https://hekint.org/2022/05/17/hans-christian-andersen-james-young-simpson-and-ether-frolics/) - If it were not for famous storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, we would not know of Simpson’s prior use of “ether frolics” for entertainment..
- [The great hospitals of Paris](https://hekint.org/2025/11/13/the-great-hospitals-of-paris/) - Few cities have shaped Western civilization as profoundly as Paris, the "city of light". For over 500 years, until the mid-twentieth century, Paris was the undisputed center of European culture, encompassing art, literature, and philosophy. Historians trace its early history to 451 CE, when Saint Genevieve saved it from the Huns, and to about 500
- [The history of medicine in Malaysia and Singapore](https://hekint.org/2025/11/06/the-history-of-medicine-in-malaysia-and-singapore/) - The history of medicine in Malaysia and Singapore spans centuries of healing activities derived from indigenous traditions, colonial influences, and scientific advances. Long before the colonial era, local communities practiced herbal medicine using ingredients derived from the tropical rainforest's flora, using methods passed down through generations, often combining herbal remedies with rituals, incantations, and divination.
- [The practice of medicine at the time of the <i>Ramayana</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/the-practice-of-medicine-at-the-time-of-the-ramayana/) - The Ramayana, one of India’s great epics, was composed by the sage Valmiki. The epic consists of about 24,000 couplet verses in Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, divided into 500 chapters. Its themes include the war between the god king Rama while in exile in the forests of India and the demon king Ravana, who abducts
- [Ayurveda, the ancient Indian medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/05/14/ayurveda-the-ancient-indian-medicine/) - The Ayurveda is the world's oldest healing systems in the world.. Its name comes from the Sanskrit "Ayur," meaning life, and "Veda," meaning knowledge. Emerging from the Indus Valley Civilization (c. 2600–1900 BCE) and attaining its most developed form in the first millennium BCE, it is based on a philosophical metaphysical system drawn from Sankhya
- [Ancient Chinese medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/05/14/ancient-chinese-medicine/) - Chinese medicine represents one of the oldest systems in history. It views the human body as an integrated whole where physical health affects mental wellbeing while requiring environmental balance. The core principle of Chinese medicine includes the vital energy called qi (pronounced "chee”) which flows through the body. A proper flow of qi maintains health,
- [Early descriptions of polymyalgia rheumatica and giant cell arteritis](https://hekint.org/2025/11/10/early-descriptions-of-polymyalgia-rheumatica-and-giant-cell-arteritis/) - JMS PearceHull, England The accurate depiction of polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) in the 1940s is relatively recent. By contrast, its close relative giant cell arteritis (GCA) was clearly described in 1890. Their early descriptions were separate and the recognition of their overlap did not appear until the 1960s.1,2 The uncertain nature of the condition is shown
- [The enduring legacy of William Stewart Halsted](https://hekint.org/2025/11/10/the-enduring-legacy-of-william-stewart-halsted/) - Michael NeffDallas, TexasMariam BanoubJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois Late at night, nearly as exhausted with worry as the patient suffering severe abdominal pain before him, William Halsted made an executive decision. “Mother,” he pleaded, “you have an infected gallbladder and you need an operation.” After more reassurance, Mrs. Halsted, clutching her side, lay on the table and
- [Edward Jenner and the dairymaid](https://hekint.org/2018/04/18/edward-jenner-and-the-dairymaid/) - Smallpox has plagued mankind since time immemorial, causing huge epidemics with great loss of life and often changing the course of history. The disease could be prevented or ameliorated by variolation, the subcutaneous inoculation with fluid from smallpox lesions into non-immune individuals. Variolation had been used for centuries, even for members of royal families. It
- [Antonín Dvořák of the <i>New World Symphony</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/07/17/antonin-dvorak-of-the-new-world-symphony/) - Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904), the celebrated musical composer, brilliantly combined Czech folk traditions with sophisticated Western classical music. Born in the small village of Nelahozeves near Prague, in what is now the Czech Republic, he was the son of an innkeeper and butcher who also played the zither. At age six, Dvořák began violin lessons, then
- [Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)](https://hekint.org/2025/07/17/ralph-vaughan-williams-1872-1958/) - Ralph Vaughan Williams is regarded as one of the most influential and beloved English musical composers, active at a time when his country’s music was heavily influenced by German and French traditions. He was born in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, into a well-connected and intellectual family. His father was a barrister and vicar, while his mother
- [Sir Edward Elgar, pioneer of English music](https://hekint.org/2025/07/21/sir-edward-elgar-pioneer-of-english-music/) - Sir Edward Elgar raised English music to prominence at a time when it was dominated by continental composers. Renowned for his The Dream of Gerontius oratorio (1900), Enigma Variations (1899), the Pomp and Circumstance marches (1901–1930), a Violin Concerto (1910), a Cello Concerto (1919), two symphonies, and many other compositions, he became one of the
- [Antonio Vivaldi, the "Red Priest" composer](https://hekint.org/2025/06/23/antonio-vivaldi-the-red-priest-composer/) - By the middle of the 17th century, Venice no longer reigned as the naval superpower of the Mediterranean. But with a population of about 150,000, it was still the most elegant and refined city in Europe. Born there in 1676 was one of the greatest composers of all time, Antonio Vivaldi. Ordained as a Catholic
- [The London teaching medical schools](https://hekint.org/2025/11/06/the-london-teaching-medical-schools/) - London's hospitals have played a key part in medical history. The earliest ones were not medical schools, but religious or charitable institutions established to serve the poor, infirm, and pilgrims. St. Bartholomew's Hospital, founded in 1123 by Rahere, an Augustinian monk and former courtier of King Henry, was one of these early establishments, followed by
- [Johannes Brahms: His life and health](https://hekint.org/2025/06/20/johannes-brahms-his-life-and-health/) - The musical world remembers Johannes Brahms as one of the leading composers of the Romantic era. His musical output included four symphonies, concertos, a Requiem, folk songs, Lieder, chamber music, and choral works. Born in 1833 in Hamburg, he lived with his family under poor circumstances, began music lessons as a child, and played the
- [Domenico Scarlatti: The Baroque revolutionary](https://hekint.org/2025/06/20/domenico-scarlatti-the-baroque-revolutionary/) - The Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) is regarded today as one of the most original and influential figures in the history of keyboard music. Though not as famous in his own time as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel—all born in the same year!—his innovations and the style of his 550 keyboard sonatas greatly
- [Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)](https://hekint.org/2025/06/16/edvard-grieg-1843-1907/) - In the spring of 1860, a seventeen-year-old student Norwegian student at the prestigious Leipzig Conservatory developed a severe case of pleurisy. He ultimately survived a disease which killed most patients in the pre-antibiotic era, but its consequences were permanent and devastating. A destroyed left lung combined with a visible thoracic spine deformity and permanent respiratory
- [Tchaikovsky: His medical life and his death](https://hekint.org/2025/06/12/tchaikovsky-his-medical-life-and-his-death/) - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) composed wonderful symphonies, operas, and ballets, but suffered greatly during his life from an array of medical and psychological issues. His letters and diaries reveal a lifelong struggle with emotional problems that modern medicine would likely classify as depressive or bipolar disorder. He went through frequent periods of melancholy, social withdrawal,
- [Frédéric Chopin: Poland's greatest composer (1810–1849)](https://hekint.org/2025/05/27/frederic-chopin-polands-greatest-composer-1810-1849/) - Frédéric Chopin was one of the greatest piano composers of the Romantic era. Born to a French father and a Polish mother, he grew up in a household that highly valued education and culture. By age six, he was already creating musical compositions, and at age seven, he wrote a polonaise. He received his formal
- [Novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital in 1964](https://hekint.org/2021/10/21/novice-doctor-at-guys-hospital-in-1964/) - Hugh Tunstall-PedoeDundee, Scotland, United Kingdom Initiation My initiation as a novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital, London (Fig 1) was as junior partner to the legendary King of Surgery and Queen of Nursing. It was 1964. Clinical students in London medical schools with first degrees at Cambridge University went back there for their final exams, predominantly
- [The air remembers](https://hekint.org/2025/11/06/the-air-remembers/) - Elizabeth CrowstonCavalier, North Dakota, United States In the grasp of the dawn, where your laughter once danced, The air remembers where you were, a tale of love glanced. I reach out for you but am greeted with raw emptiness, The air holds your shape, unreachable to me, in its quietness. Beneath the sky's vast, unfathomable blue, Where sunsets painted
- [Imhotep: Humanity’s great physician and polymath](https://hekint.org/2025/11/06/imhotep-humanitys-great-physician-and-polymath/) - Brian O'DeaIllinois, United States Imhotep is regarded as one of history’s first polymaths, a man whose genius transcended disciplines. Few figures in the ancient world stand as tall as Imhotep. As vizier to the pharaoh Djoser of the third dynasty (c. 27th century BC), he envisioned the first major stone monument, the step pyramid at
- [Why did Shakespeare never mention tobacco?](https://hekint.org/2025/11/06/why-did-shakespeare-never-mention-tobacco/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Tobacco was used in Elizabethan England to treat diseases and injuries, as well as for relaxation and social interactions. Why, then, did Shakespeare never mention tobacco in any of his plays, or even refer to its use? Tobacco grew only in the Americas before Columbus’ voyages. When Europeans first arrived
- [Théodore Tronchin](https://hekint.org/2025/09/29/theodore-tronchin/) - Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, Netherlands Life in eighteenth-century Geneva was idyllic in many ways. The religious wars had ended, epidemics were still far away, infant mortality was on the decline, Protestant immigrants were arriving, and money flowed into the city faster than the Rhône River. The city walls no longer seemed needed, yet still were there. The
- [A magnificent late seventeenth-century German pharmacy cabinet](https://hekint.org/2025/11/03/a-magnificent-late-seventeenth-century-german-pharmacy-cabinet/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England Small, portable apothecary cabinets were once popular for household, travel, and campaign purposes, but few have survived from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Several are exhibited in German museums,1 including one spectacular example in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Münich. The cabinet represents a fusion of artistic media. The goldsmith was Joseph Herterich
- [A brief history of fluorescein](https://hekint.org/2025/11/03/a-brief-history-of-fluorescein/) - Vidhi NaikAberdeen, Scotland Fluorescein, a strikingly bright orange-yellow liquid, is an essential tool in ophthalmic practice. Its synthesis marked a pivotal moment in the intersection of chemistry and medicine. Created by Adolf von Baeyer, a Nobel prizewinning chemist, in 1871, fluorescein originated as a product of industrial organic chemistry but soon became central to ophthalmic
- [From slavery to silk: Anna-Canangan of Java](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/from-slavery-to-silk-anna-canangan-of-java/) - Falk SteinsNiedernhausen, GermanyStephen MartinBaan Dong Bang, Thailand The oil painting Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom (Fig. 1) was acquired by the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2020. Newly discovered documents supporting the lady’s almost certain identity tell a remarkable story of the late Dutch Republic. The painting shows a young woman wearing
- [Charles Valentin Alkan](https://hekint.org/2021/11/15/charles-valentin-alkan/) - Charles-Henri Valentin Morhange was a precocious child who played the piano at the age of five and gave his first public performance at seven. He was the second of six children of an old Ashkenazi family that for centuries had lived near the town of Metz in Alsace. Born in Paris in 1813, he later
- [On the way to school](https://hekint.org/2021/10/22/on-the-way-to-school/) - Mary JumbelicSyracuse, New York, United States A thin line of blood oozed from a shallow cut in the skin, like the first stroke of an artist’s brush on a blank canvas. The second and third incisions intersected the first to form a large Y-shape. Sanguinous fluid beaded up along their lengths. As the scalpel penetrated
- [Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man"](https://hekint.org/2020/05/08/joseph-merrick-the-elephant-man/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom As a specimen of humanity, Merrick was ignoble and repulsive; but the spirit of Merrick, if it can be seen in the form of the living, would assume the figure of an upstanding and heroic man . . .6 The life of Joseph Merrick, also known as “the Elephant Man,”
- [Samuel Mudd, MD: Good Samaritan or conspirator?](https://hekint.org/2020/08/13/samuel-mudd-md-good-samaritan-or-conspirator/) - Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States As he rose in the Washington, D.C. courtroom on June 30, 1865, to hear his verdict, Dr. Samuel Mudd looked older than his thirty-one years (Figure 1). His odobene mustache framed his mouth and his goatee was speckled with prematurely gray hair. His shoulders were slightly slouched and perspiration
- [The three contraries of Benjamin Franklin: “The gout, the stone and not yet master of all my passions”](https://hekint.org/2021/01/25/the-three-contraries-of-benjamin-franklin-the-gout-the-stone-and-not-yet-master-of-all-my-passions/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States On May 23, 1785, Benjamin Franklin wrote from Passy on the outskirts of Paris to George Whatley that “at Fourscore the three contraries that have befallen me, being subject to the Gout and the Stone, and not yet Master of all my passions.”1 It is a long letter and
- [The assassination of President McKinley: Death from traumatic gunshot pancreatitis?](https://hekint.org/2021/08/24/the-assassination-of-president-mckinley-death-from-traumatic-gunshot-pancreatitis/) - On September 6, 1901, the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, was shot twice with a concealed weapon by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz at the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo, New York. A popular president, he was serving a second term, having led the country to
- [Trachoma: Contained but not yet subdued](https://hekint.org/2024/06/27/trachoma-contained-but-not-yet-subdued/) - Trachoma is a chronic eye infection caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, a bacterium at first thought to be a virus because of its minuscule size. It is the most common infectious cause of blindness worldwide, striking repeatedly in early childhood and, until recently, blinding millions.1 In 1907, Ludwig Halberstadter and Stanislaus von Prowazek observed the causative
- [La couronne](https://hekint.org/2020/03/23/la-couronne/) - Sophia WilsonNew Zealand Virions, under an electron microscope, resemble a crown.An artist’s soft hued roses and golds,belie the sinister underbelly, the forked tongue. Everything suddenly looks a whole lot different; Today an elderly woman inclined overwalking frame, inches down supermarket aislesin search of weekly staples, not agile enough to dodge another’s cough,nor equipped to stockpileor
- [Hesiod: The creation of the world](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/hesiod-the-creation-of-the-world/) - Even the most educated members of our generation who have read many of the ancient Greek classics may not be familiar with Hesiod’s works, the Theogony and the Works and Days. Written at about the same time as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad (around 700 BCE), they reflect the Greek rather than the Hebrew or Mesopotamian
- [Sewing for surgeons](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/sewing-for-surgeons/) - Evelyn LeeWinston-Salem, North Carolina, United States It started with my mother’s simple question the summer after my freshman year of college: “Want to take a sewing class with me?” Initially, I said no. As a pre-medical student, I felt I needed to spend my summer doing something that would benefit my medical path, not a
- [Fractured vision: The influence of early medical imaging on the Cubism movement](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/fractured-vision-the-influence-of-early-medical-imaging-on-the-cubism-movement/) - Jen HeVivian McAlisterLondon, Ontario, Canada The influence of art on medicine has been emphasized—it separates a physician with clinical acumen from a scholar with medical knowledge, as well as man from machine. Less frequently explored is the historic role that medicine and its innovations have played in advancing the arts. In a small provincial village
- [The canon’s vision](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/the-canons-vision/) - Óscar Lamas FilgueiraValencia, Spain In medicine, we rely on images every day—photographs, X‑rays, scans—that reveal truths our eyes alone cannot grasp. But centuries ago, physicians and healers had no such tools. Their understanding of illness had to be drawn from observation, testimony, and sometimes, from the works of artists who captured the marks of disease
- [Leonard Rowntree’s biography of James Parkinson](https://hekint.org/2025/10/30/leonard-rowntrees-biography-of-james-parkinson/) - Vivian McAlisterLondon, Ontario, Canada By the time of his death in 1824, seven years after writing a monograph on the “shaking palsy,” James Parkinson was nearly forgotten.1 Even today, few people know anything about him, despite the fact that his medical eponym is well known. Over 100 years ago, this knowledge gap troubled Leonard Rowntree,
- [Jean Racine (1639–1699), tragedian of body and soul](https://hekint.org/2025/09/17/jean-racine-1639-1699-tragedian-of-body-and-soul/) - In the second half of the seventeenth century, Jean Racine established himself as one of the two most accomplished composers of tragedy in the French language. Sharing this distinction with the earlier Piere Corneille, he drew his subjects mainly from mythology and Roman history, describing historical events and relating classical stories. He was raised after
- [Five ethics cartoons](https://hekint.org/2025/10/27/five-ethics-cartoons/) - Mitchell BataviaNew York, NY, United States 1. Harvest Questionable organ harvesting practices were recently publicized in the July 21, 2025 HHS report “Systematic Disregard for Sanctity of Life in Organ Transport Systems.” Are organ donors actually dead at the time of organ procurement? 2. Sensitive Medical Disclosure With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the
- [She who heals: From goddess to surgeon](https://hekint.org/2025/10/27/she-who-heals-from-goddess-to-surgeon/) - Elie NajjarNottingham, United Kingdom Every incision carries two stories. One is written in anatomy. The other—in myth. In the theatre, the light hums softly above the table, and the air smells of antiseptic and electricity. Beneath the drapes, muscle and bone shimmer like hidden scripture. Surgery, I have learned, is not only science. It is
- [A medical and cultural history of nostalgia](https://hekint.org/2025/10/27/a-medical-and-cultural-history-of-nostalgia/) - Martine MussiesUtrecht, The Netherlands “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” —William Faulkner Today, nostalgia is described as a warm, bittersweet emotion—a longing for a bygone era, a childhood melody, or a photograph in sepia tones. But for more than a century, nostalgia was classified as a disease. Coined by Swiss physician Johannes
- [Alix Joffroy in Brouillet’s <i>A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/10/27/alix-joffroy-in-brouillets-a-clinical-lesson-at-the-salpetriere/) - Lilian GleaveCork, Ireland While some students of Jean-Martin Charcot like Sigmund Freud and Joseph Babinski achieved enduring fame, the legacy of others is just as foundational. In André Brouillet’s 1887 painting A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière,1 a man stands by the window, his head supported by his hand, lit from behind. Some medical historians
- [Book review: <i>"All manner of ingenuity and industry": A bio-bibliography of Dr. Thomas Willis 1621–1675</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/08/24/book-review-of-all-manner-of-ingenuity-and-industry-a-bio-bibliography-of-dr-thomas-willis-1621-1675/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Thomas Willis, born four hundred years ago, is still known by students of neuroanatomy today for the eponymous Circle of Willis. Yet most doctors do not know the story of Willis, the seventeenth-century British physician and his remarkable contributions to medical knowledge and literature. This new book, a labor of
- [“On Being Sane in Insane Places”<sup>1</sup>: Psychiatric hospitalization as seen by Gabriel García Márquez and Dr. David Rosenhan](https://hekint.org/2021/11/04/on-being-sane-in-insane-places1-psychiatric-hospitalization-as-seen-by-gabriel-garcia-marquez-and-dr-david-rosenhan/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Literature and science may complement each other. Sometimes they actually describe the same phenomenon. Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) was a Colombian novelist, journalist, and short story writer. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. His short story “I Only Came to Use the Phone” (1978), part of the collection
- [Franz Joseph Gall and phrenology](https://hekint.org/2021/11/05/franz-joseph-gall-and-phrenology/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom For many reasons the work of Gall, when stripped of its excrescences, constituted an important landmark in the history of neurology.—Macdonald Critchley4 In the times of Galen, the location of the mind and spirit was imprecisely thought to reside in the brain’s ventricles and pineal. In the second century AD,
- [The disease you do not see](https://hekint.org/2018/03/15/disease-not-see/) - Aaron BerkowitzNew York, New York, USA You look normal, good even. Statistically you are bigger, stronger than billions of people alive (and those who have died). You learn to repeat mantras to affirm your being. There is power in prayer when action is impossible. You cry more too, beg. You force yourself to write, to
- [Of men and brains and rats](https://hekint.org/2019/04/08/of-men-and-brains-and-rats/) - Observers of the affairs of man in an age of mass destruction weaponry have long worried about the future of the human race. Why do men so often make erroneous decisions and act in ways detrimental to their interests and even to their survival? Is not Homo sapiens the epitome of millions of years of
- [When I heard the learn’d epidemiologist](https://hekint.org/2020/07/09/when-i-heard-the-learnd-epidemiologist/) - Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Sitting on the maroon recliner in my den, I am having trouble concentrating on the epidemiologist who is talking on the television. He points to a Covid hot zone on a color-coded map of the United States. The screen changes before I can locate Virginia. Were we brown, or yellow?
- [<i>The Plague</i> and physician burnout](https://hekint.org/2020/07/16/the-plague-and-physician-burnout/) - Geoffrey RubinMark AbramsD. Edmund AnsteyNew York, New York, United States In Albert Camus’ novel The Plague,1 Doctor Rieux is a consummate physician, a hero and a “true healer.” His main charge is to compassionately perform his duty—a matter, in his words, of “common decency”—despite the personal risk of infection and death. Rieux embodies the Oslerian
- [The Bengal tiger: <i>Panthera tigris tigris</i>](https://hekint.org/2020/07/23/the-bengal-tiger-panthera-tigris-tigris/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States The Indian subcontinent for millennia provided the ideal “jungle” habitat for the tiger. When the first Europeans arrived in India the animal was ubiquitous. At the close of the nineteenth century, when Kipling wrote The Jungle Books, 100,000 tigers were thought to roam the subcontinent. By 1971, a critical
- [The pandemic: A medical student’s perspective](https://hekint.org/2020/09/21/the-pandemic-a-medical-students-perspective/) - As medical students, we eagerly await the start of clinical rotations.This is an account of my days as a medical student during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- [“Do I look gay to you?”](https://hekint.org/2020/10/08/do-i-look-gay-to-you/) - Elena HillNew York, United States When I first went to Tijuana to the US-Mexican border to volunteer as a physician, I was expecting to see women fleeing abuse, men escaping gang violence, and families pursuing a better life. I was not expecting to see a large LGBTQ population. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that
- [The healing oil of Saint Walburga](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/the-healing-oil-of-saint-walburga/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England Born in what is now Devon around 710, Walburga (also spelled Walpurga) was educated at Wimborne Abbey in Dorset, eventually becoming a nun there. In the 740s she joined her brothers, Willibald and Wunibald, who responded to a call from their uncle, St. Boniface (680–755), to become part of the Anglo-Saxon evangelical
- [Famous physicians from Geneva, Switzerland](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/famous-physicians-from-geneva-switzerland/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Geneva, Switzerland is associated with many famous physicians and scientists. Some have been memorialized in street names, buildings, and institutions. Michael Servetus (ca. 1511–1553), a physician and theologian who lived most of his life in France,1 fled to Geneva after being condemned by Catholic authorities in France for the publication of
- [The early Medici in Florence](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/the-early-medici-in-florence/) - The history of the beautiful city of Florence dates to the early Middle Ages and is intertwined with that of the remarkable Medici family. Their very name suggests a medical origin, and legend has it that an early Medici was physician to Charlemagne. As early as the 1200s, Chiarissimo di Giambuono (de' Medici) is reported
- [Early medicine in Australia](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/early-medicine-in-australia/) - Eighteen years after James Cook landed in Australia in 1770, the First Fleet arrived, carrying convicts, marines, and physicians. The colony’s surgeons faced overwhelming challenges—starvation, malnutrition, and disease—in a climate much unlike Britain’s. Dr. John White, the principal surgeon, recorded in his journals the “fevers, fluxes, and scorbutic afflictions” that plagued both prisoners and guards.
- [The practice of looking inward](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/the-practice-of-looking-inward/) - Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States I am a medical humanities educator and museum docent. I use art images to teach clinical skills to family medicine residents. Images grab residents' attention and simplify emotional learning by making it more engaging and accessible. A painting can transform the theoretical into vivid imagery. During a gallery tour at
- [Procession of honor](https://hekint.org/2025/10/23/procession-of-honor/) - Nancy ChedidCambridge, Massachusetts, United States We all heard the alarm. Strident and jarring. As medical interns in our eighth month of training—our nerves primed, our blood already rising—we steeled ourselves for the announcement that must follow. Was it a cardiac arrest? An ambulance, rushing accident victims to the emergency room? A fire? No. The voice
- [Isaac Disraeli: <i>Curiosities of Literature</i> and other publications](https://hekint.org/2025/10/16/isaac-disraeli-curiosities-of-literature-and-other-publications/) - Benjamin Disraeli (1766–1848), the famous prime minister of England, described his father Isaac as a great disappointment to his parents. He was a "difficult and rather morose child … pale and pensive, with large dark brown eyes, and flowing hair…timid, susceptible, lost in reverie, fond of solitude, and seeking no better company than a book."
- [George Bernard Shaw: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/george-bernard-shaw-medical/) - George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), the Irish playwright, critic, polemicist, and Nobel Prize winner, was one of the great satirists of modern times. He left his mark not only on literature and theater but also on social and political thought. Among his many lifelong concerns, medicine and public health occupied a special place. Shaw was at
- [Friedrich Nietzsche—much afflicted philosopher](https://hekint.org/2020/08/11/friedrich-nietzsche-much-afflicted-philosopher/) - Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most important philosophers of the nineteenth century. Though often misinterpreted, his influence has been enormous. Like his compatriot Schopenhauer, he questioned the comfortable beliefs of the conservative bourgeoisie of his time. His writings have fascinated generations of readers, his style was exquisite, his ideas original. Bertrand Russell called him
- [The surgery of pyloric stenosis in Chicago](https://hekint.org/2020/06/09/the-surgery-of-pyloric-stenosis-in-chicago/) - John RaffenspergerFort Meyers, Florida, United States Harald Hirschprung, a Danish pediatrician, in 1888 described the clinical course and pathology of two infants who died with congenital hypertrophic pyloric stenosis.1 Gastroenterostomy was adopted for the treatment of infants with pyloric stenosis, but surgical treatments were hampered by delayed diagnosis, malnutrition, and a lack of knowledge about
- [A very early Picasso painting](https://hekint.org/2020/05/04/a-very-early-picasso-painting/) - Pablo Picasso was sixteen years old and obviously was not yet famous when he made this painting. His father, an artist himself, had encouraged his son to paint but favored traditional forms such as country scenes and conventional portraits. He himself sat as model for Science and Charity (1897) and is depicted as the conventional
- [Jack London’s cloudy crystal ball](https://hekint.org/2020/10/20/jack-londons-cloudy-crystal-ball/) - Edward McSweeganKingston, Rhode Island, United States The COVID-19 pandemic has given quarantined readers new opportunities to discover the literature of plagues and epidemics. Many people—in order to give context to the present pandemic—have turned to books like Albert Camus’ classic novel The Plague, Daniel DeFoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, Steven King’s The Stand,
- [“Looking at … Looking away”: A challenging and vital skill](https://hekint.org/2020/10/21/looking-at-looking-away-a-challenging-and-vital-skill/) - Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA For nearly a decade, I have used images of paintings to teach students in health care professions how to cultivate the skills of looking while learning to recognize their own feelings and those of others. Most recently, I have been concerned with how emotions compel us to look away. Inspired by
- [Notes on a first abortion](https://hekint.org/2020/10/27/notes-on-a-first-abortion/) - Henry Bair Stanford, California, United States The first time I saw a late-term abortion by dilation and evacuation, I was surprised that it was a fairly minor procedure. I was to observe the termination at twenty-three weeks of gestation as part of my obstetrics-gynecology rotation, and while the procedure can be performed in a clinic rather
- [Things to think](https://hekint.org/2020/11/09/things-to-think/) - Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States Think in ways you’ve never thought before.If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a messageLarger than anything you’ve ever heard,Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats. Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a mooseHas risen out of the
- [The revolution of Abraham Flexner and its aftermath](https://hekint.org/2020/11/17/the-revolution-of-abraham-flexner-and-its-aftermath/) - Unlike his brother Simon, who became a celebrated infectious diseases specialist and director of the Rockefeller Institute, Abraham Flexner was mainly interested in culture and education. He also grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, where his father had ended up after an odyssey that had taken him from Bohemia to Strasbourg, to New York, to New
- [Absinthe: The green fairy](https://hekint.org/2020/11/19/absinthe-the-green-fairy/) - Nicolás Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain "After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."—Oscar Wilde Absinthe is a spirit with very high alcohol
- [Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses](https://hekint.org/2021/01/13/harriet-tubman-joan-of-arc-and-moses/) - Faraze A. NiaziJack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Listen to my words: "When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. Numbers 12:6 (NIV) “Harriet and Joan, what topic has your two fine souls so deeply engrossed?” “Moses, we were discussing recent hurtful
- [Enlightenment from Sherlock Holmes on COVID-19 associated perilous boredom](https://hekint.org/2021/01/19/enlightenment-from-sherlock-holmes-on-covid-19-associated-perilous-boredom/) - Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Boredom can useful. It can motivate people to do great things. It can also be dangerous by increasing the risk of depression and the risk of participation in unhealthy activities.1 It is an emotional state of weariness through lack of interest that can result in the “pursuit of novel (even negative)
- [Intersection of mental illness, the supernatural, and gender in Pakistan](https://hekint.org/2021/01/20/intersection-of-mental-illness-the-supernatural-and-gender-in-pakistan/) - Sualeha Siddiq ShekhaniKarachi, Pakistan Maria sits across from me in a pristine clinic room in a private hospital in Pakistan. At first reluctant to speak about her husband’s illness, her words suddenly flow as if a dam has burst. She wants me to know everything: her suffering and her worry at taking care of her
- [Wellbeing](https://hekint.org/2021/01/25/wellbeing/) - Sanjana Sundara Raj SreenathEl Paso, Texas, United States This painting portrays the physical and psychological impact of the pandemic. It captures not only the physical isolation due to social distancing but also feelings of loneliness. The cognitive and mental health after-effects can persist long after recovering from Covid-19. With increased feelings of anxiety, isolation, and
- [Hemodialysis treatment for schizophrenia?](https://hekint.org/2021/03/10/hemodialysis-treatment-for-schizophrenia/) - Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain “You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did, and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.”—Mary W. Shelley, Frankenstein (The Modern Prometheus) Jean-Baptiste Denys (1643–3 October 1704), a French physician who was the personal doctor
- [The loneliness of the long-living doctor](https://hekint.org/2021/03/26/the-loneliness-of-the-long-living-doctor/) - Peter Arnold Sydney, Australia A noticeable phenomenon of the twenty-first century is the increasing frequency of friendships between older men. The importance of such friendships to both mental and physical health has been well documented.1,2,3 This issue has particular relevance to older male doctors, especially in the UK, where doctors tend to retire early.4 Many
- [Ancient Greek plague and coronavirus](https://hekint.org/2021/03/26/ancient-greek-plague-and-coronavirus/) - Patrick BellBelfast, Northern Ireland Introduction Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War have been termed “the three earliest, and arguably most influential, representations of the plague in Western narrative.”1 This essay uses these historical sources to examine attitudes toward plague in ancient Greece and parallels in the modern response
- [Book Review of <I>Intensive Care: A GP, A Community and COVID-19</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/03/31/book-review-of-intensive-care-a-gp-a-community-and-covid-19/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom Gavin Francis is a family doctor in Scotland who has written several critically-acclaimed books. In his latest work, he chronicles his experience of the COVID-19 pandemic as a family doctor (general practitioner or GP) and the effects of the virus on the rural and urban communities of Scotland. The devastating
- [How Britain rescued scientists from Nazi tyranny](https://hekint.org/2021/04/02/how-britain-rescued-scientists-from-nazi-tyranny/) - JMS PearceHull, England In March 1933 while visiting Vienna, William Beveridge, Director of the London School of Economics, learned that Hitler had just decreed it illegal for “non-Aryan,” mostly Jewish people to hold posts in the Civil Service. Many lawyers, doctors, and academics were deemed “undesirable” and dismissed instantly. Nazi concentration camps, mass desecration, medical
- [Covid battleground](https://hekint.org/2021/04/05/covid-battleground/) - Elena WilsonRockville, Maryland, United States Up and down, up and down they riseForgetting so easily all of the criesCries for help, cries for changeCries for more, cries for days Down and up, and down they fallSeeking hope, finding wallsWalls of iron, walls of steelWalls of words, walls of kneels Change is brewing, slowly soonA coming
- [The history of quarantine and contact tracing as surveillance strategies](https://hekint.org/2021/04/07/the-history-of-quarantine-and-contact-tracing-as-surveillance-strategies/) - Mariella ScerriVictor GrechMalta Quarantine, from the Italian quaranta, meaning forty, is a centuries-old public health measure instituted to control the spread of infectious diseases by mandating isolation, sanitary cordons, and other mitigation measures.1 Though essential in preventing the spread of disease, such measures have often been controversial, as they raised “political, ethical, and socioeconomic issues
- [Leonhard Thurneysser: Scholar, alchemist, and miracle doctor](https://hekint.org/2021/04/12/leonhard-thurneysser-scholar-alchemist-and-miracle-doctor/) - A highly controversial figure even in his time, Leonhard Thurneysser remains to this very day for some a revered scientist and for others a resolute quack. Born 1531 in Basel, he was the son of a goldsmith and followed in his father’s profession. He also studied with a physician and alchemist but never attended any
- [COVID-19 and 1665: Learning from Daniel Defoe](https://hekint.org/2021/04/12/covid-19-and-1665-learning-from-daniel-defoe/) - Brian BirchSouthampton, Hampshire, UK Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year is an account of the 1665 Great Plague of London. Based on eyewitness experience, the undersigned initials "H. F." suggest the author's uncle, Henry Foe, as its primary source. Published in 1722, it stands as the most reliable and comprehensive account of the
- [The Valsalva maneuver](https://hekint.org/2021/05/12/the-valsalva-maneuver/) - JMS PearceHull, England, UK It is a paradox that the discovery of the Valsalva maneuver did not relate to cardiovascular physiology but to the treatment of discharges from the ear. Valsalva’s maneuver is now used physiologically1 to test cardiac and autonomic function, and in several other diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. The surgeon Leonard of Bertapaglia
- [A day in Texas](https://hekint.org/2021/05/14/a-day-in-texas/) - Steven PerezVirginia, United States It was the late 1980s. I had just been discharged from the Air Force and returned to my hometown of San Antonio, Texas, to look for an internal medicine practice to join. As I waited for responses to my inquiry letters, I found a job in a rural Texas emergency room
- [Early lessons](https://hekint.org/2021/05/27/early-lessons/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Finally, it was my first day in a US hospital after studying medicine in Europe for five and a half years. A medical education at the very old and renowned Belgian university at which I studied lasted seven years. The school let its foreign students return to their home countries for the
- [A bad taste in the mouth: Over fifty years of doubt about MSG](https://hekint.org/2021/06/04/a-bad-taste-in-the-mouth-over-fifty-years-of-doubt-about-msg/) - Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Monosodium glutamate’s bad reputation started with one letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. From there, the truth was confused by misinformation and prejudice. Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote to NEJM in April of 1968, sharing his observation that after eating at American Chinese restaurants he experienced “numbness
- [Homeopathy: Medicine or placebo?](https://hekint.org/2021/06/16/homeopathy-medicine-or-placebo/) - Shrestha SarafSutton Coldfield, UKSudarshan RamachandranBirmingham, UK Homeopathy, based on a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine, was developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann around 1790. The primary principle of homeopathy is “like cures like,” i.e., a substance that causes symptoms can also be used to remove those symptoms. The trigger for the development of this system
- [Covid cascade killed my father](https://hekint.org/2021/06/16/covid-cascade-killed-my-father/) - Helen MeldrumWaltham, Maine, United States My father died last year from what I call “Covid cascade,” a series of unforeseen consequences that ensue when Covid-19 breaks out in a healthcare facility. My father did not have the virus at the time he died—in fact, he tested negative three times. I write this hoping it will
- [The wonderful world of vaccines](https://hekint.org/2021/06/23/the-wonderful-world-of-vaccines/) - Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Epidemics and pandemics became an issue about 10,000 years ago when hunters and gatherers became farmers and began to live in communities. Smallpox was one of the first lethal infections that spread widely. Its stigmata are seen in Egyptian mummies dating to 1570-1085 BCE. By 1500 CE, in China, India,
- [The medicine in our stars](https://hekint.org/2021/06/28/the-medicine-in-our-stars/) - Nishitha BujalaHyderabad, Telangana, India I have been fascinated by the night sky for as long as I can remember. I would see the tiny, indiscernible stars and wonder if there was a bigger meaning to the world than what I had perceived. As I grew up, I began to realize it was not the stars
- [Men, women, and idioms of distress](https://hekint.org/2021/06/29/men-women-and-idioms-of-distress/) - Mary SeemanToronto, Ontario, Canada In all cultures there is a place for illness that is not easily explained by individual pathology. It is usually attributed to larger societal unrest, with some individuals responding to that unrest with somatic or psychological symptoms. When a community is stressed, by natural disasters or by wars, by feelings of
- [<i>The Call of the Wild</i> and COVID-19](https://hekint.org/2021/07/06/the-call-of-the-wild-and-covid-19/) - Liam ButchartStony Brook, New York, United StatesSamantha RizzoWashington DC, United States The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a terrible toll upon all of us and has brought the medical system—and the providers who inhabit it—to its knees. There is a tradition in medicine, following Sir William Osler’s “Aequinimitas,” of compassionate detachment: as physicians or trainees, we
- [Aunty Felicia](https://hekint.org/2021/08/18/aunty-felicia/) - Boma SomiariPort Harcourt, Nigeria I can’t stand blood. So my goal was to stay as far as I could from hospitals and all they come with. But then change came to me when Aunty Felicia came to my village with a missionary organization that chose medicine and science as the medium for their message. As
- [A confession from a patient of atopic dermatitis](https://hekint.org/2021/08/24/a-confession-from-a-patient-of-atopic-dermatitis/) - Yen-Hsiang WangTaipei, Taiwan I am one of the ten to twenty percent of people in the world with atopic dermatitis. Allergies to environmental factors such as dust mites and certain foods contribute to this condition. Immune function is also an important factor, as evidenced by immunoglobulin E (IgE) and increased eosinophilic leukocytes in the blood.
- [The history of polio and cigarettes, and the need for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate](https://hekint.org/2021/08/27/the-history-of-polio-and-cigarettes-and-the-need-for-a-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/) - Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Depicted in this display (Picture 1) at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia are technologic marvels. The first is a box that contained early vials of Dr. Salk’s formalin inactive polio vaccine (with supplementary irradiation). The second is a matchbook, originally invented in the 1890s, that made another technologic marvel
- [When Darwin was wrong](https://hekint.org/2021/09/03/when-darwin-was-wrong/) - John HaymanVictoria, Australia Charles Darwin (1809–1802) is rightly famous, not for the discovery of evolution but for revealing the mechanism by which it may occur, natural selection. He not only formulated this idea, but he also presented evidence to support it and put it forward in a readily understood manner that could be comprehended by
- [Review: <i>The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/09/24/review-the-history-of-the-world-in-100-pandemics-plagues-and-epidemics/) - Arpan BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place the current COVID-19 epidemic in its rightful historical context. Famine, war, and pestilence have
- [Beans: An indelicate subject of conversation](https://hekint.org/2022/06/28/beans-an-indelicate-subject-of-conversation/) - Anatomy books describe kidneys as bean shaped, but the converse does not apply. This is because beans, multitudinous in their species, come in different shapes and sizes. Many look like small kidneys, but only one is called a kidney bean.1,2 Like their cousins lentils and peas, beans are the dried seeds of the flowering plants
- [The origins of NIH medical research grants](https://hekint.org/2022/10/18/the-origins-of-nih-medical-research-grants/) - National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants support non-government universities, hospitals, and small businesses. The program developed during World War II...
- [Physicians and photosynthesis](https://hekint.org/2022/10/24/physicians-and-photosynthesis/) - Read more on how photosynthesis was discovered by doctors in this fascinating article by Dr. JMS Pearce...
- [Douglas Argyll Robertson and his pupils](https://hekint.org/2022/11/08/douglas-argyll-robertson-and-his-pupils/) - The Argyll Robertson pupil (or AR pupil)s an important, classical sign of neurosyphilis.
- [Margery Kempe: Medieval visions, delusions, and hallucinations](https://hekint.org/2022/12/20/margery-kempe-medieval-visions-delusions-and-hallucinations/) - Margery Kempe (c. 1393 – after 1438) was an English Christian mystic who dictated autobiographic notes to a scribe. Married when twenty years old, she had a postpartum psychotic episode after the birth of her first child and went through at least fourteen subsequent pregnancies. Psychotic symptoms, delusions, and hallucinations continued all her life. She had
- [Menstrual health in early Indian medical tradition](https://hekint.org/2023/01/09/menstrual-health-in-early-indian-medical-tradition/) - Although the discussion of women's health in Ayurveda is somewhat limited, Carakasamhita & Susrutasamhita cover conception, pregnancy, & the postpartum period.
- [Christopher Wren's contributions to medicine](https://hekint.org/2023/01/31/christopher-wrens-contributions-to-medicine/) - An extraordinary natural philosopher and Renaissance man, Christopher Wren (1632–1723) (Fig 1) was primarily an astronomer and architect.
- [The night the emergency room staff vanished](https://hekint.org/2023/03/02/the-night-the-emergency-room-staff-vanished/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland One of the strangest events of my medical career occurred on a spring evening in 1975. It was during one of my outpatient months as a pediatric resident at a large medical center in New York City. During the day, I took care of infants, children, and adolescents in the pediatric clinic;
- [The ancient history of beer](https://hekint.org/2023/04/06/the-ancient-history-of-beer/) - Carol ShermanChicago, Illinois, United States Beer is a short word with a long history. According to the World History Encyclopedia, it is the world’s oldest alcoholic drink. The name comes from the Latin “bibere” via the German “bier,” meaning “to drink.”1 The origin dates back to the first Stone Age settlements. During the Neolithic period, the
- [Trijntje Keever—A tall tale](https://hekint.org/2021/09/30/trijntje-keever-a-tall-tale/) - Orit Pinhas-HamielHamiel UriTirosh AmitRamat Gan, Israel There is a life-size painting in the city of Edam in The Netherlands that portrays a girl who is exceptionally tall with disproportionately long hands. The artist is unknown, but the name of the girl in the picture is Trijntje Keever. Trijntje was born in April 1616, the daughter
- [Abhay Sadhak (fearless seeker): Baba Amte](https://hekint.org/2021/10/08/abhay-sadhak-fearless-seeker-baba-amte/) - Utkarsh G. HingmireNagpur, India Murlidhar Devidas Amte, affectionately known as Baba Amte, was a lawyer who left his lucrative legal career to devote his life to the treatment of patients suffering from leprosy.1 If one was to describe his life in a few sentences it would be “I sought my soul, my soul I could
- [The “weak” intern](https://hekint.org/2021/10/15/the-weak-intern/) - Htet KhineReno, Nevada, United States “She is quite weak,” I overheard two senior residents say about one of my co-interns. I tried to tune out the conversation—I did not have enough time or mental capacity to comprehend what being “weak” entailed. I was busy writing notes, answering pages, and placing orders, but I could not
- [The doctor behind the labcoat](https://hekint.org/2021/11/04/the-doctor-behind-the-labcoat/) - Varun Raj PassiBangalore, India Sanjeev knew he was not asleep, and the very fact that he was conscious enough to know this made him worry. The relentless clicking of the wall-clock above his bedstead amplified his anxiety. He knew that the more clicks he registered now, the less sleep he would get, and in turn
- [Lebanon: A thumbprint in medicine](https://hekint.org/2021/12/22/lebanon-a-thumbprint-in-medicine/) - Jonathan MinaBeirut, Lebanon Lebanon is a country that has long developed and exported physicians and other leaders in healthcare for the world. The contribution of Lebanese physicians to medicine include the discovery of diseases and treatments, the advancement of medical practice, and the invention of new techniques. Crigler-Najjar syndrome was discovered by a Lebanese pediatrician
- [Lebanon during the catastrophe](https://hekint.org/2021/12/30/lebanon-during-the-catastrophe/) - Najat FadlallahBeirut, LebanonJulian MaamariRochester, Minnesota, United StatesAbeer HaniBeirut, Lebanon After several chaotic cycles of resuscitation attempts, the twenty-something-year-old woman was pronounced dead. This was less than half an hour after a massive blast shook the heart of Beirut, Lebanon on the eve of August 4, 2020. “I immediately looked around, devastated that I was about
- [Serendipity in science and medicine](https://hekint.org/2022/01/10/serendipity-in-science-and-medicine/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!”, but “That’s funny...” —Isaac Asimov Horace Walpole (son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole) coined the word "serendipity" in 1754. It was based on a Persian fairytale in which three
- [Rabbit starvation (protein poisoning)](https://hekint.org/2022/01/26/rabbit-starvation-protein-poisoning/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "Jack Sprat could eat no fat,his wife could eat no lean..."—Sixteenth-century nursery rhyme Rabbit starvation (fat starvation, mal de caribou, protein poisoning) is an acute type of malnutrition that develops from a diet deficient in fat and where nearly all calories come from lean meat. Rabbit meat is very lean, as can
- [“It would be like I never existed”: Two minutes with manic psychosis, 1978](https://hekint.org/2022/01/26/it-would-be-like-i-never-existed-two-minutes-with-manic-psychosis-1978/) - Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States Foreword Mental illness is often marginalized by non-psychiatric clinicians, yet it causes as much suffering, if not more, than physical illness. I was a medical student completing a rotation in psychiatry when I observed the encounter described here. The patient had visited several community clinics and received little treatment
- [<i>De Profundis</i>: Oscar Wilde’s narrative of mental anguish](https://hekint.org/2022/02/07/de-profundis-oscar-wildes-narrative-of-mental-anguish/) - Anthony ChesebroStony Brook, New York, United States “There is only one season, the season of sorrow.”1 Imprisoned for a relationship that was criminalized by the government of his time, in 1897 Oscar Wilde had spent two years in jail. Finally granted permission to write, over a period of three months he produced De Profundis, an
- [Humans with tails](https://hekint.org/2022/03/24/humans-with-tails/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "...he had been born and had grown up with a cartilaginous tail in the shape of acorkscrew with a small tuft of hair on the tip."— Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude1 The chance of a child being born with a tail-like lumbosacral appendage is small. About sixty cases have
- [Dr. Fritz Kahn and medical infographics](https://hekint.org/2022/03/31/dr-fritz-kahn-and-medical-infographics/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "If I were...an intern just getting ready to begin, I would be apprehensive that my real job, caring for sick people, might soon be taken away, leaving me with the quite different occupation of looking after machines."—Lewis Thomas, MD, 1983 Dr. Fritz Kahn (1888–1968), a Berlin gynecologist, realized that society's fascination with
- [The sixtieth anniversary of the "Battered Child Syndrome"](https://hekint.org/2022/04/04/the-sixtieth-anniversary-of-the-battered-child-syndrome/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward."—Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist In 1962, Dr. C. Henry Kempe and colleagues at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver published their groundbreaking article, "The Battered Child Syndrome," in the Journal of the American Medical Association.1 The article alerted
- [Marmite versus Vegemite](https://hekint.org/2022/07/16/marmite-versus-vegemite/) - James FranklinGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States Marmite and Vegemite are similar but not quite the same. Both are classified as spreads and are typically spread with a knife on bread or crackers. They may be regarded as cousins and are both derived from yeast. Marmite, though discovered by a German, is a product of the
- [Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy and medicine](https://hekint.org/2022/09/29/francis-bacons-natural-philosophy-and-medicine/) - Natural philosophy, the precursor of modern science, was advanced by names still famous 300 years later. Francis Bacon's natural philosophy and medicine...
- [Robert Hooke and <i>Micrographia</i>](https://hekint.org/2023/04/27/robert-hooke-and-micrographia/) - JMS PearceHull, England It is perhaps rash to attempt to appraise the work of Robert Hooke (1635–1703), but renewed attention is merited to a great scientist whose contribution to medicine and science has not been adequately acknowledged. Robert Hooke was a scientist and biologist who, at a time when science was young and not yet
- [A cesarean section in Uganda in 1879](https://hekint.org/2023/05/17/a-cesarean-section-in-uganda-in-1879/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “A strange story indeed, almost too good to be true.”1 Until the end of the nineteenth century, a cesarean section to deliver an infant was considered to be an operation with much risk and little success. In England, some physicians “doubted if a cesarean section was ever justified.”2 The first successful cesarean
- [<i>Mrs. Dalloway</i> and shell shock](https://hekint.org/2023/05/30/mrs-dalloway-and-shell-shock/) - Cristóbal S. Berry-CabánFort Liberty, North Carolina, United States The casualties suffered by the participants in World War I surpassed those of previous conflicts, as some 8.5 million soldiers died from wounds or disease.1,2 Artillery caused most of the casualties, followed by small arms and poison gas. However, the war's signature injury became known as shell
- [Archibald Edward Garrod: Inborn errors of metabolism](https://hekint.org/2023/06/13/archibald-edward-garrod-inborn-errors-of-metabolism/) - JMS PearceHull, England It is given to very few to invent a new class of diseases and to even fewer one that has survived subsequent scrutiny. Archibald Garrod, KCMG DM LLD FRCP FRS (1857–1936) (Fig 1), was born in London into an unusually talented family. He was the fourth son of Sir Alfred Baring Garrod,
- [Max Planck on innovation and age](https://hekint.org/2023/08/09/max-planck-on-innovation-and-age/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Max Planck (1858–1947) was born in Kiel, Germany, to an educated family. He earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1879 from the University of Munich. His quantum theory, in which he postulated that energy is released in discrete units and not continuously, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck’s work
- [The history of apples is the history of mankind](https://hekint.org/2023/08/17/the-history-of-apples-is-the-history-of-mankind/) - The apple has been intertwined with human civilization for thousands of years. References to apples can be found in history, literature, religion, and folklore. The wild ancestor of the modern apple tree, Malus sieversii, originated in Central Asia and was domesticated some 4,000 years ago as Malus domestica. The former still grows wild in Central
- [Vegetarians, vegans, and compassionate eating](https://hekint.org/2023/08/23/vegetarians-vegans-and-compassionate-eating/) - Our ancestors, who lived swinging from limb to limb in the trees, ate nuts and berries and killed animals to eat them. With the development of agriculture and civilization, some people developed pangs of conscience and felt that animals also have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They became vegetarians
- [Stay inside: A toast to the frontline](https://hekint.org/2022/04/25/stay-inside-a-toast-to-the-frontline/) - Tyler BeauchampRushay AmarathAndy NguyenAugusta, Georgia, United States The COVID-19 pandemic introduced us to a danger we knew little of how to protect ourselves from. I had spent the last four years fighting for the chance to become a physician, and now, in March 2020, I found myself useless to help. My parents were doing everything
- [Robert Louis Stevenson and hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia](https://hekint.org/2020/04/29/robert-louis-stevenson-and-hereditary-hemorrhagic-telangiectasia/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, USA Famed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) traveled to Monterey, California, in 1879 and lived for three months on the second floor of a white adobe boarding house called the French Hotel. Located on 530 Houston Street, the edifice is now known as the Stevenson House and serves as a major
- [Queen Juana: The mad or the betrayed?](https://hekint.org/2021/08/24/queen-juana-the-mad-or-the-betrayed/) - Juliana MenegakisLondon, United Kingdom Juana of Castile is known by her epithet "the Mad." But was she truly insane? Infanta Juana of Castile and Aragon was born in 1479 to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the famed Catholic Monarchs who united Spain. Juana had two older siblings, Isabella and John, and
- [Wounded deer—Medical aspects of the life of Frida Kahlo](https://hekint.org/2017/01/23/wounded-deer-medical-aspects-of-the-life-of-frida-kahlo/) - Farrah Jawad, Winter 2017, Art Essays, Frida Kahlo, Hektoen
- [Why are most babies born at night?](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/why-are-most-babies-born-at-night/) - Hektoen, George Dunea, Hans Zinsser, birth, pregnancy, obstetrics, Fall 2013
- [Catching your death: Infectious rain in the works of Jane Austen](https://hekint.org/2021/09/30/catching-your-death-infectious-rain-in-the-works-of-jane-austen/) - Eve ElliotDublin, Ireland Fans of the Netflix romp Bridgerton or any of the Jane Austen film adaptations will likely be familiar with the important social etiquette of inquiring after someone's health. Unlike the modern throwaway how are you, people in the English Regency era1 had a genuine interest in the health of family and friends.
- [Predicting heart attack](https://hekint.org/2017/01/23/predicting-heart-attack/) - Hektoen,, Shridhar Dwivedi, Winter 2012, Poetry, Manic Heart, Mark Lubich
- [Was Moses an alchemist?](https://hekint.org/2021/10/21/was-moses-an-alchemist/) - S.E.S. MedinaBenbrook, Texas, United States “And he took the (golden) calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.” -Exodus 32:20. In the event depicted above, Moses had just returned with the Ten
- [Sir Samuel Wilks (1824–1911)](https://hekint.org/2017/04/19/sir-samuel-wilks-1824-1911/) - Sir Samuel Wilks was one of the most influential English general physicians of the second half of the nineteenth century. He was a careful clinician and an accomplished investigator, always trying to correlate clinical and pathology findings. Author of seven books and fifteen separate articles or pamphlets, he wrote some 450 papers, including one defending
- [Survival of the happiest](https://hekint.org/2025/10/09/survival-of-the-happiest/) - Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It has been said that the impact of whatever happens to us owes 10% to the fact itself and 90% to our own response. Consequently, our happiness—or lack of it—under any circumstances is largely in our hands. This is quite obvious in the field of health and disease, as the following story
- [Sir Benjamin Brodie](https://hekint.org/2025/10/09/sir-benjamin-brodie/) - JMS PearceHull, England Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783–1862) was born in Winterslow, near Salisbury. His father, Peter Bellinger Brodie, was the local rector. Having graduated from Worcester College, Oxford, he chose to educate Benjamin at home since he was unable to meet the fees of the public schools. Choosing medicine as his career, Benjamin ventured to
- [Chicago's vanished hospitals](https://hekint.org/2025/10/09/chicagos-vanished-hospitals/) - Hospitals, like their patients and their doctors, do not last forever. They close their doors and vanish into history. In Chicago, they failed because their patients moved to the suburbs, methods of reimbursement changed, and medicine itself keeps on evolving. Most of the hospitals listed here were not too long ago in the forefront of
- [Jöns Jacob Berzelius: Physician, scientist, and globetrotter](https://hekint.org/2019/05/02/jons-jacob-berzelius-physician-scientist-and-globetrotter/) - Frank WollheimSweden Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) was not only the enigmatic Swedish chemist of his time but also an accomplished medical doctor, active humanitarian, co-founder of the Karolinska Institute, and secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for thirty years. He also mastered the pen, leaving 7000 letters, several books, diaries, and an autobiography.1
- [An "enematic" saga](https://hekint.org/2017/12/18/an-enematic-saga/) - F. Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, USA Those of us who have managed to survive sixty, seventy, or more years remember that the enema or clyster was, by far, the commonest home remedy in the twentieth century. (Enema: “Liquid or gaseous substance, either medicinal or alimentary, introduced mechanically into the rectum.”) No family was without the rubber bottle,
- [The spedale of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence](https://hekint.org/2017/02/22/donatella-lippi-luigi-padeletti/) - So important a health care institution was Santa Maria Nuova that it was taken as a model by numerous European dignitaries, including Pope Leo X, Henry VII..
- [Jean-Françoise Champollion—Revisiting his illnesses and death](https://hekint.org/2023/02/21/jean-francoise-champollion-revisiting-his-illnesses-and-death/) - “I’ve found it!” In 1822, Jean-Françoise Champollion told his brother he had a breakthrough in deciphering the Rosetta Stone, then collapsed to the floor.
- [<I>North and South</I> and the intersections of environment and health](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/north-and-south-and-the-intersections-of-environment-and-health/) - Roslyn WeaverSydney, Australia “Why, Mr. Thornton! You’re cutting me very coolly, I must say. And how is Mrs. Thornton? Brave weather this! We doctors don’t like it, I can tell you!” “I beg your pardon, Dr. Donaldson. I really didn’t see you. My mother’s quite well, thank you. It is a fine day, and good
- [The Latest Decalogue  ](https://hekint.org/2025/10/06/the-latest-decalogue/) - Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) Thou shalt have one God only; who Would tax himself to worship two? God's image nowhere shalt thou see, Save haply in the currency: Swear not at all; since for thy curse Thine enemy is not the worse: At church on Sunday to attend Will help to keep the world thy friend: Honor thy parents; that is, all From whom
- [The last days of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594–1612)](https://hekint.org/2025/10/06/the-last-days-of-henry-frederick-prince-of-wales-1594-1612/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England As the eldest son of King James I (1566–1625) and Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), Henry Frederick (Fig. 1) was heir apparent to the English throne. His premature death from typhoid fever in 1612 meant that he was succeeded by his younger brother, Charles I (1600–1649). An erudite scholar, enthusiastic sportsman, and highly
- [The death of King George V](https://hekint.org/2021/10/01/the-death-of-king-george-v/) - Seamus O’MahonyLondon, England Bertrand Dawson, Lord Dawson of Penn (1864-1945), was the most eminent British doctor in the years between the two world wars. He was both a skilled medical politician (twice president of the British Medical Association, eight-times president of the Royal College of Physicians) and a brilliantly successful private practitioner. His bedside manner
- [Political obfuscation and medical speculation](https://hekint.org/2020/02/13/political-obfuscation-and-medical-speculation/) - Charles G. KelsSan Antonio, Texas, United States Politicians have long endeavored to keep their health concerns secret. In US presidential politics, the efforts of both incumbents and candidates to project vitality and minimize frailty have at times bordered on the surreal. In 1893, President Grover Cleveland underwent surgery for oral cancer on a private yacht
- [Ghirlandaio, humanism, and truth: The portrait of an elderly man and young boy](https://hekint.org/2020/08/03/ghirlandaio-humanism-and-truth-the-portrait-of-an-elderly-man-and-young-boy/) - Vincent P. de LuiseNew Haven, Connecticut, United States “. . . There is no more human a picture in the entire rangeof Quattrocento painting, whether in or out of Italy . . .”– Bernard Berenson Among the defining characteristics of the Renaissance were humanism and naturalism. While many Renaissance paintings and sculptures were depictions of
- [The medical university of Jundi-Shapur](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-medical-university-of-jundi-shapur/) - Andrew C. MillerBethesda, Maryland, United States With the exception of the hospital at Jundi-Shapur, hospitals and medical centers as we know them are not known to have existed before AD 400.1 In the late Sassanid period, a considerable scientific movement grew in Persia.2 Jundi-Shapur (Genta Shapitra in Pahlavi, Gondi Shapur in Farsi, Beth Lapat in
- [Kwashiorkor](https://hekint.org/2021/03/01/kwashiorkor/) - Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States An eleven-month-old Egyptian infant sat wailing on a cot, his abdomen pouched out and covered by spider-like purplish veins. His tiny arms and legs were like sticks, except for his swollen ankles. He was brought in by his mother who knew that his food and care would be free,
- [Nursing diagnoses](https://hekint.org/2017/02/24/nursing-diagnoses-2/) - Mat Matteson,Geraldine GormanChicago, Illinois, United States Introduction: An inoculation in just time Ah, the end of the semester. In the best of times it hauls with it taunting deadlines, a gaggle of loose ends, and inevitable self-recriminations. In months such as these last few, marked by strained fiscal budgets, ubiquitous downsizing, and escalating war, it
- [The belief in bacteria: An early history of microbiology](https://hekint.org/2025/10/02/the-belief-in-bacteria-an-early-history-of-microbiology/) - Mostafa ElbabaDoha, Qatar The history of microbiology is a compelling narrative of how humanity slowly unraveled the unseen world of microscopic life. The field has fundamentally transformed medicine, biology, and human understanding of disease. But for millennia, explanations for the origins of life and the causes of illness were rooted in philosophical speculation and ancient
- [Unlikely pioneers in renal transplantation: The Little Company of Mary Sisters](https://hekint.org/2020/04/29/unlikely-pioneers-in-renal-transplantation-the-little-company-of-mary-sisters/) - Jayant RadhakrishnanDarien, Illinois, United States Dr. Joseph Murray deservedly received the Nobel Prize in 1990 for his magnificent pioneering work in the field of renal transplantation.1 However, it is not widely known that religious sisters from the congregation of the Little Company of Mary also deserve much credit for their support of renal transplantation in
- [<i>The Living Text</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/10/02/the-living-text/) - Simran AnandBoston, Massachusetts, United States From the open pages of a book rises a body formed from organs, a brain, DNA, molecules, and a microscope. Each element represents a piece of science—knowledge, discovery, and the study of life at every level, from cells to systems. The book at the base is deliberate: it shows how
- [The remarkable Baldwin IV: Leper and king of Jerusalem](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/the-remarkable-baldwin-iv-leper-and-king-of-jerusalem/) - History Essays, John Turner, Winter 2011, neurological impairment, leprosy, Jerusalem, Hektoen
- [Dr. Gerhard Hansen – A great discoverer](https://hekint.org/2023/10/19/dr-gerhard-hansen-a-great-discoverer/) - To further his ability to study leprosy, Hansen learned the latest histologic techniques. Many at the time believed leprosy was a hereditary disease.
- [Leprosy: A nearly forgotten malady](https://hekint.org/2017/12/29/leprosy-nearly-forgotten-malady/) - JMS PearceHull Royal Infirmary Leprosy was the first proven instance of a bacterium causing a human disease. Along with plague, poliomyelitis, and smallpox, leprosy has beleaguered mankind for millennia, causing devastating and often fatal infections that were historically impossible to cure or prevent. The nervous system, skin,and eyes are the main sites affected. The word
- [Queer and unked: Disability, monstrosity, and George Eliot’s "Sympathy"](https://hekint.org/2017/03/24/queer-and-unked-disability-monstrosity-and-george-eliots-sympathy/) - Christina LeeKent, United Kingdom In The Mill on the Floss, the intellectual and sensitive Philip Wakem, who has a curved spine from a fall in infancy, is called “a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue.”1(II.vi) In the manuscript Philip Wakem is branded “queer and unked.”1(V.v) “Queer” used here means “a state of strangeness and
- [Being our best selves: Hidden in full view](https://hekint.org/2020/06/24/being-our-best-selves-hidden-in-full-view/) - James StollerPeter ReaAlan KolpCleveland, Ohio, United States We live in a paradox framed by a tension between age-old wisdom about excellence and our current state. The paradox is this: our behaviors and our priorities are often at odds with age-old truths about how we can be our best selves. This paradox—that these truths are widely
- [Erich Heckel: in a lunatic asylum](https://hekint.org/2020/07/06/erich-heckel-in-a-lunatic-asylum/) - Erich Heckel (1883--1970) was one of the founding members of Die Brücke (“The Bridge”), formed in Dresden in 1905 as a bohemian group of artists in rebellion against the older, established norms. In this painting, he depicts four inmates confined to a mental institution for reasons not explained. The squalid and disheveled man in the
- [“My dear neoplasm”: Sigmund Freud’s oral cancer](https://hekint.org/2022/10/28/my-dear-neoplasm-sigmund-freuds-oral-cancer/) - When Sigmund Freud died on September 23, 1939, he succumbed to what he wryly referred to as “my dear old cancer with which I have been sharing my existence for sixteen years.”
- [Is a bigger brain better?](https://hekint.org/2023/02/23/is-a-bigger-brain-better/) - Does intelligence depend on the size and dimensions of the brain? According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, intelligence can be defined as the ability...
- [Kirkleatham Hospital](https://hekint.org/2017/05/10/kirkleatham-hospital/) - Stephen MartinMahasarakham Art and architecture in historic almshouses provided aesthetic pleasure, improved self-esteem and attended to spiritual need. An example of early Enlightenment philanthropy in the English village of Kirkleatham, Cleveland, provides major humanitarian lessons for the planners of today. East Cleveland was used to progressive thinking. A remarkable socio-geographical commentary on the area was
- [Armand Trousseau: Physician, teacher, and innovator](https://hekint.org/2025/09/29/armand-trousseau-physician-teacher-and-innovator/) - Armand Trousseau (1801–1867) was one of the most important figures of 19th-century French medicine. His career spanned the era when medicine was transitioning from speculative theory to clinical observation, careful diagnosis, and systematic teaching. A physician of immense influence, Trousseau made significant contributions to the understanding of diseases ranging from croup and tuberculosis to cancer
- [Friedrich Welwitsch, physician and botanist (1806–1872)](https://hekint.org/2025/09/29/friedrich-welwitsch-physician-and-botanist-1806-1872/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel I believe not too many people have heard of the Austrian physician-botanist Friedrich Welwitsch (1806–1872; Friderik Velbic in Slovene). He studied in Vienna and practiced medicine in Slovenia and Moravia. In 1839 he gave up medicine and concentrated on botany, moving to Portugal and becoming director of the botanical gardens. He studied first
- [Nathaniel Hawthorne: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/26/nathaniel-hawthorne-medical/) - Although Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was not a physician, his writings often concern themselves with medicine and disease. His childhood was shadowed by illness. He injured his leg at age nine and had a long period of recovery and convalescence, being confined indoors for nearly two years. This period of immobility, often cited as the genesis
- [Lentils](https://hekint.org/2023/01/18/lentils/) - Lentils are widely cultivated legumes. They are grown and consumed throughout the world, but almost half of the world’s lentils, 45%, are produced in Canada...
- [Asparagus in history and medicine](https://hekint.org/2022/07/12/asparagus-in-history-and-medicine/) - In Germany, in the spring, everyone goes wild about asparagus. It is on the menu in all restaurants—asparagus with steak, with ham, or with schnitzel. Its delicious stalks are white if grown in the shade, green from chlorophyll if grown in sunlight. Asparagus is also eaten outside Germany, but perhaps not quite with the same
- [Left-handedness: Is it the winner's curse?](https://hekint.org/2017/11/27/left-handedness-winners-curse/) - Isuri WimalasiriKandawela Estate, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka Most human beings, some 85% to 95%, are right-handed, and the remainder consists mainly of left-handers and a negligibly small number of ambidextrous people. Hand orientation is decided during intrauterine life, but if a child shows hand preference before the age of eighteen months this it is considered abnormal
- [Christmas with Dupuytren and Lisfranc](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/christmas-with-dupuytren-and-lisfranc/) - Hektoen, Anne Jacobson, Surgery, Baron Guillaume Dupuytren
- [Ibn Rushd (Averroes), medieval polymath](https://hekint.org/2018/10/23/ibn-rushd-averroes-medieval-polymath/) - It is hard to know what to make of someone who has written books on philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, law, and linguistics. In our time this would have been impossible. Not so in medieval Andalusia, where Ibn Rushd, now best known under his Latinized name of Averroes, never missed a day reading or writing
- [Mark Twain (1835-1910): Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/25/mark-twain-1835-1910-medical/) - Mark Twain, born Samuel Clemens, is remembered predominantly for creating Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the two boys whose adventures have delighted generations of readers. He rose from humble beginnings to being considered one of the funniest people of his time. Twain was a premature baby, not expected to live. When he turned four, his
- [Serendipity](https://hekint.org/2025/09/25/serendipity/) - JMS PearceHull, England Serendipity has featured as an important factor in many discoveries and investigations in both medicine and science. Artists too, often refer to happy accidents that appear in their paintings. Amongst many well known medical examples of serendipity are: Fleming’s discovery of penicillin; Wilhelm Röntgen’s observations while studying cathode rays that the X-rays
- [Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi](https://hekint.org/2017/01/28/muhammad-ibn-zakariya-al-razi/) - Ramin SamSan Francisco, California, United States While Europe languished in the Middle Ages, the Islamic world sustained and contributed to the scientific and mathematic knowledge accumulated by the Greeks. One of the most influential of these scientists was Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi, otherwise known as Rasis or Rhazes. Born in Rey (near present-day Teheran) in 865,
- [Citizen Zinsser: Portrait of a Renaissance man](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/citizen-zinsser-portrait-of-a-renaissance-man/) - Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States In the September 16, 1940 issue of TIME Magazine an intriguing obituary was found: Although initially, at Columbia, the group he was drawn to was “bawdy and idle,” specializing in drinking and pool playing. However, after sending some verses to The Spectator, the college newspaper, he was drawn to a
- [Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and medicine: A triumph over infirmity](https://hekint.org/2017/01/25/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec-and-medicine-a-triumph-over-infirmity/) - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's condition was named pycnodysostosis in 1962 and was soon attributed to this artist as the “Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome.”
- [The sweating sickness in Tudor England: A plague of the Renaissance](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/the-sweating-sickness-in-tudor-england-a-plague-of-the-renaissance/) - Philip LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Introduction In the recent semi-fictional work by Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall, which takes place in the early 16th century, the protagonist Thomas Cromwell, counsel and henchman of Henry VIII, awakens in the morning to find his wife sleeping, but the sheets are damp.1 “She is warm and flushed.” He goes
- [Stephen Hales: Belief and blood pressure](https://hekint.org/2018/10/09/stephen-hales-belief-and-blood-pressure/) - Joseph deBettencourtChicago, Illinois, United States “It would but ill become us in this our State of Uncertainty, to treat the Errors and Mistakes of others with Scorn and Contempt, when we ourselves see Things but as through a Glass darkly, and are very far from any Pretensions to Infallibility”— Stephen Hales, Haemastatics Stephen Hales’ father
- [The Fountain of Youth](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/the-fountain-of-youth/) - George Dunea, Winter 2012, Art Flashes, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Eduard Veith, miraculous springs of water, Hektoen
- [In sickness and in health: misogyny in medicine](https://hekint.org/2021/08/27/in-sickness-and-in-health-misogyny-in-medicine/) - Shreya SharmaOntario, Canada “You see, he does not believe I am sick! And what can one do?”1 These words, spoken by the unnamed narrator of Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s 1892 short story The Yellow Wallpaper, could have been articulated by many women about their medical experiences. Women have long had to navigate a healthcare system designed
- [James Bryan Herrick](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/james-bryan-herrick/) - Philip Liebson, James Herrick, Cardiology, Ludwig Hektoen
- [The ligament of Vaclav Treitz](https://hekint.org/2018/10/12/the-ligament-of-vaclav-treitz/) - Vaclav Treitz (1819–1872) was born in Bohemia, studied humanities at the Charles University in Prague, and obtained his medical degree there in 1846. He then furthered his education at the New or Second Vienna School under the great luminaries of the time, Karl Rokitansky, Joseph Skoda, and Ferdinand von Hebra. He specifically worked in anatomy
- [George Gissing: <i>The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/09/22/george-gissing-the-private-papers-of-henry-ryecroft/) - At the end of the nineteenth century, George Gissing (1857–1903) was one of the three most important English novelists of his time. Born in the north of England, he studied at the precursor of the University of Manchester, fell in love with a young prostitute, and began stealing from fellow students to support her. He
- [Mozart, Mesmer and medicine](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/mozart-mesmer-and-medicine/) - James L. FranklinChicago, IL Paper given at the Chicago Literary Club on February 16, 2004 As a physician, I have long been interested in representations of medical topics in literature, art and music. Examples quickly come to mind: the world of the tuberculosis sanatorium in "The Magic Mountain" of Thomas Mann or an epidemic in
- [The Monros: A medical dynasty](https://hekint.org/2018/06/26/the-monros-a-medical-dynasty/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In medieval times Celtic life was based on a clan system of lineage in certain territories. Each clan had a chief, kinsmen, and families who worked and lived on their lands. The treatment of illness within the entire clan was the responsibility of a medically trained physician, a selected member
- [<I>Through the Magic Door</I> with Conan Doyle](https://hekint.org/2018/06/05/through-the-magic-door-with-conan-doyle/) - “Father said it used to be a gentleman was known by his books." —William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury You are invited, gentle reader, to walk through the magic door and step into the library. Smoking is allowed, says your host, as he invites you to sit on the green settee from “where you
- [Día de los Muertos ofrenda](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/dia-de-los-muertos-ofrenda/) - Caley McIntyreChicago, Illinois, United States "An ancient and cherished tradition throughout Mexico, Day of the Dead celebrates the return of the spirits of the deceased to the world of the living. Ofrendas—altars decorated with the pictures of the departed, golden marigolds and skulls—are built and gifts to the spirits are left for their enjoyment. It
- [“Plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners”—A brief history of fermented cabbage as antiscorbutic](https://hekint.org/2021/06/17/plague-of-the-sea-and-the-spoyle-of-mariners-a-brief-history-of-fermented-cabbage-as-antiscorbutic/) - Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia “. . . those affected have skin as black as ink, ulcers, difficult respiration, rictus of the limbs, teeth falling out and, perhaps most revolting of all, a strange plethora of gum tissue sprouting out of the mouth, which immediately rotted and lent the victim’s breath an abominable odour.”– Chaplain Richard
- [Trying to conceive: Royal fertility issues in Renaissance times](https://hekint.org/2020/03/02/trying-to-conceive-royal-fertility-issues-in-renaissance-times/) - Julius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Dynasties beget legacies. An enduring legacy is important to all great leaders. However, dynasties need time—time to accomplish major national objectives or memorable feats. Today that is why our elected officials, to pass on a lasting legacy, spend much of their time campaigning for their next election. In ancient and
- [Opening the left ventricle](https://hekint.org/2019/11/26/opening-the-left-ventricle/) - This image is from Henry W. Cattell’s 1905 Post-mortem pathology; a manual of post-mortem examinations and the interpretations to be drawn therefrom; a practical treatise for students and practioners. It shows the approach for opening the left ventricle after the heart is removed from the body. Highlighted Vignette Volume 12, Issue 4 – Fall 2020
- [Why do physicians write so badly?](https://hekint.org/2021/04/26/why-do-physicians-write-so-badly/) - Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia An old joke is that pharmacists are the only people who can read physicians’ handwriting. This piece is not about handwriting, but about writing style. Compared with great medical authors, like Somerset Maugham, Conan Doyle, Anton Chekhov, John Keats, and Friedrich von Schiller, most physicians are not good writers. (I could have
- [Walter Edward Dandy](https://hekint.org/2022/07/22/walter-edward-dandy/) - JMS PearceHull, England In the history of American neurosurgery, two names stand out from the rest: Harvey Cushing (1869–1939) and Walter Edward Dandy (1886–1946). Sadly, they were inveterate rivals. Dandy was undoubtedly a brilliant pioneer of both neurosurgical research and practice. He was born in in a small house on 5th Street, Sedalia, Missouri, an
- [Revisiting the “Trolley Problem” in the COVID-19 pandemic](https://hekint.org/2020/10/15/revisiting-the-trolley-problem-in-the-covid-19-pandemic/) - Margaret B. MitchellBoston, Massachusetts, United StatesGraham M. Attipoe Nashville, Tennessee, United States The “Trolley Problem” Originally described by Philipa Foot in 1967, the “Trolley Problem” is an ethical dilemma commonly taught in philosophy that challenges participants to explore how far they would go to save lives: A trolley is barreling down a set of tracks towards
- [Decades in the trenches](https://hekint.org/2025/09/18/decades-in-the-trenches/) - Robert PietrzakWest Haven, Connecticut Seventy-six years have weathered this frame, yet nineteen still smolders—unyielding flame. In jungles of memory where nightmares reside, vines of the past knot heaven to hell’s side. The therapy chair groans beneath my weight, Dr. Martinez speaks—calm, measured, straight. “Trauma,” “processing”—echoes rebound, off bunker-thick walls where silence is sound. The world keeps a rhythm I’ve long cast
- [Henry Vandyke Carter (1831–1897)](https://hekint.org/2025/09/18/henry-vandyke-carter-1831-1897/) - JMS PearceHull, England There is no better-known medical textbook than Gray’s Anatomy. No doctor’s interest can fail to be aroused by someone whose student career begins with the triennial essay prize of Royal College of Surgeons of England. Thus began the all too brief career of Henry Gray (? 1827–1861). The Wellcome librarian Noel Poynter
- [Till Eulenspiegel: The mischievous trickster](https://hekint.org/2025/09/17/till-eulenspiegel-the-mischievous-trickster/) - Like Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegel is a literary character who has never ceased to entertain generations of readers. He was first featured in medieval stories in which he ridiculed the foolishness and hypocrisy of the wealthy nobles, clergy, merchants, and in particular the impostor physicians and quacks. He is believed to have been born around
- [Voltaire: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/16/voltaire-medical/) - François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire (1694–1778), remains one of the Enlightenment’s most brilliant and biting voices. He is remembered as a satirist, philosopher, and champion of reason, but less often as someone deeply engaged with the medical questions of his time. Yet Voltaire’s life, writings, and even ailments reveal the profound influence of medicine
- [On extracampine hallucinations and Alexander Selkirk](https://hekint.org/2025/09/15/on-extracampine-hallucinations-and-alexander-selkirk/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel In what may be justifiably described as the “third man factor syndrome,” some people may experience the hallucination that another person is present with them in the room. The long-term war correspondent Sebastian Junger described such a phenomenon when, during an emergency surgery for a ruptured aneurysm, he had imagined that
- [Johannes Mesuë’s electuary of gems](https://hekint.org/2025/09/15/johannes-mesues-electuary-of-gems/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England Gemstones such as sapphire, ruby, emerald, and topaz are complex silicate minerals. Their distinctive and intense colors, hardness, durability, and rarity suggested medicinal value to medieval scholars, famously summarized in medieval lapidary texts, or books about such stones. In the early 15th century, Monsieur Chiquart, Master Chef to the Duke of Savoy,
- [More than skin deep: The spirituality of chronic dermatologic disease](https://hekint.org/2025/09/15/more-than-skin-deep-the-spirituality-of-chronic-dermatologic-disease/) - Josephine McQuillanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Chronic dermatological conditions such as psoriasis, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis, vitiligo, hidradenitis suppurativa, and cutaneous lymphoma impose more than physical burdens—they profoundly disrupt patients’ spiritual and emotional lives. These lifelong, visible, and stigmatizing diseases fracture identity and belonging, leaving wounds that extend far beneath the skin. Historically and
- [Leo Tolstoy: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/15/leo-tolstoy-medical/) - Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), one of literature’s greatest novelists, lived through an age of intense change in medicine. Nineteenth-century Russia was a country caught between ancient folk remedies and the rise of modern scientific practice, and Tolstoy himself straddled both worlds. His health was fragile, his writings repeatedly explored themes of illness, suffering, and death, and
- [Upton Sinclair](https://hekint.org/2025/09/12/upton-sinclair/) - Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) stands as one of the most influential American writers of the early twentieth century, remembered less for literary elegance than for his unflinching exposure of social injustices. His novels and journalistic investigations, often described as “muckraking,” combined a deep sympathy for working people with a belief in socialism as a remedy for
- [Plato: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/12/plato-medical/) - Plato, the Athenian philosopher of the fourth century BCE, is remembered chiefly for his dialogues on ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Yet embedded within his philosophical works are numerous reflections on medicine and the human body. Living in a time when Greek medicine was undergoing a transition from superstition to rational observation, Plato drew on contemporary
- [Do machines dream of the human hand?](https://hekint.org/2025/09/11/do-machines-dream-of-the-human-hand/) - Elie NajjarNottingham, United Kingdom Imagine this: a machine that can see your heartbeat, read your spine, and calculate your risk of death better than your doctor can. Now ask yourself: does it understand you? Does it care if you live or die? The question is not whether machines will replace us, but something more unsettling:
- [Shaping science and education: The contributions of Dr. William H. Welch](https://hekint.org/2025/09/11/shaping-science-and-education-the-contributions-of-dr-william-h-welch/) - Mikaela MelnychukJuhi PatelNoel BrownleeBlacksburg, Virginia William H. Welch was an American physician renowned for his work in pathology, public health, bacteriology, and as the “father of American medical education.”1,2 He was part of the “Big Four” founding professors at Johns Hopkins Hospital and was the first dean at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.2 Welch was
- [The Gold-Headed Cane revisited](https://hekint.org/2019/07/11/the-gold-headed-cane-revisited/) - JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Over many centuries there have been several icons symbolic of medical practice. Typical is the single serpent, the Aesculapian wand — a “totem of Medicine”— seen in the constellation Ophiochus (the serpent holder). Serpents in ancient cultures represented fertility, rebirth, and strength. The Aesculapian wand is often confused with the two
- [Painting an ICU](https://hekint.org/2021/08/19/painting-an-icu/) - Mark TanNorthwest Deanery, England, United Kingdom “[Monet was] only an eye - yet what an eye.”— Paul Cézanne Much has been written about Claude Monet’s ophthalmic pathology.1-4 However, attributing his stylistic development to cataracts alone seems an overly reductionist view. In 1874, at least fifteen years before his Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies series, his
- [The wax models of Clemente Susini (1752–1814)](https://hekint.org/2019/12/02/the-wax-models-of-clemente-susini-1752-1814/) - Clemente Susini is remembered for creating what is probably the most extensive collection of anatomical wax works in the world. He first studied sculpture in Florence, but in 1773 became an apprentice there at the museum of natural history in a workshop recently established to produce wax models for teaching anatomy. Within a few years
- [The man who hated hospital](https://hekint.org/2021/08/11/the-man-who-hated-hospital/) - Emeka Chibuikem V.Enugu State, Nigeria An emergency patient was in critical condition. The staff nurse on duty moved swiftly to attend to him. Then she went to the waiting hall to meet with the patient’s family and asked them why they had waited so long before bringing him to the hospital. They stared at her,
- [Achilles and his famous tendon](https://hekint.org/2021/05/18/achilles-and-his-famous-tendon/) - Krzyś StachakBielsko-Biala, Poland The Achilles tendon is one of the best-known parts of the human body not only because of its name but also because injuries to it are so common. As the largest tendon in the body, it connects the heel bones to the calf muscles and allows vertical movement of the foot, so
- [Mencken: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/10/mencken-medical/) - Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956), the caustic “Sage of Baltimore,” earned lasting fame as journalist, critic, and satirist. Best remembered for The American Language (1919 and its subsequent expansions), his multi-volume study of how Americans shaped English, Mencken also trained his sharp gaze on medicine, physicians, and the very words of health and disease. Though he
- [Theodore Dreiser](https://hekint.org/2025/09/09/theodore-dreiser/) - Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) occupies a unique and often controversial place in American literature. Best remembered for his unflinching realism, his exploration of ambition, desire, and social constraint, and his massive, detail-laden novels, Dreiser was both acclaimed and censured during his lifetime. His works, particularly Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925), stand as landmark
- [W. Somerset Maugham: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/09/w-somerset-maugham-medical/) - William Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) is remembered primarily as a master of the short story and as a novelist whose lucid style made him one of the most widely read writers of the twentieth century. Yet beneath his literary reputation lies another identity: that of a trained physician. Medicine was not just a stage in Maugham’s
- [Victor Hugo: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/09/victor-hugo-medical/) - Victor Hugo (1802–1885), towering figure of French Romanticism, is remembered primarily for his vast literary achievements—Les Misérables, Notre-Dame de Paris, and countless poems that gave voice to the downtrodden and the exiled. Yet, woven into his life and works are subtle but significant medical threads. His experiences with illness, his compassion for the suffering poor,
- [The botched autopsy of president John F. Kennedy](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/the-botched-autopsy-of-president-john-f-kennedy/) - Adrian HernandezNoel BrownleeBlacksburg, Virginia The forensic autopsy of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was full of mistakes that gave rise to subsequent controversies. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, during an official visit to Dallas, Texas. He was in the right seat of an open car accompanied by Mrs. Kennedy, Texas Governor John
- [Herman Melville: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/herman-melville-medical/) - Herman Melville (1819–1891), best remembered for his monumental novel Moby-Dick, was a writer whose life and work were profoundly shaped by medical themes. Although he is often placed within the canon of American Romanticism, Melville’s writings reveal not only philosophical and theological concerns but also a deep engagement with the body, illness, and the medical
- [“The pissing evil” before insulin](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/the-pissing-evil-before-insulin/) - JMS PearceHull, England There are many excellent descriptions of the history of diabetes, and of the nineteenth- and particularly twentieth-century discoveries of the secretion of insulin by the beta cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans.1,2 (See Table) However, the earlier history of diabetes is less known. The Egyptian papyrus (c. 1550 BC) discovered by
- [Childbirth’s hidden revolution: The origins of obstetric forceps](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/childbirths-hidden-revolution-the-origins-of-obstetric-forceps/) - Mariam BanoubMatthew HillJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States The Chamberlen family of barber-surgeons had a secret, an invention unknown to anyone else at the time. They protected this invention at all costs, even when it cost a human life. To ensure their secrecy, they always arrived at a patient’s home in a highly decorated carriage. Assistants
- [Leukemia: White blood](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/leukemia-white-blood/) - Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Leukemia may have afflicted humans as long as 7,000 years ago,1 but it was not diagnosed until the middle of the nineteenth century. Successful treatment would not be available for another 100 years. Peter Cullen described “splenitis acutus” with milky blood in 1811, and Alfred Armand Louis Marie Velpeau identified
- [The attempted poisoning of Pope John XXII in 1317](https://hekint.org/2025/09/08/the-attempted-poisoning-of-pope-john-xxii-in-1317/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England Rome was the traditional home of the papacy, but tension with the French crown (Philip IV, 1268–1314) led to a move to Avignon, then in the Kingdom of Arles, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1309. The second (and longest reigning) of the seven Avignon popes was Pope John
- [Beauty in breaking](https://hekint.org/2021/01/12/beauty-in-breaking/) - Lealani AcostaNashville, Tennessee, United States I had a succulent hanging from my office cabinet, suspended in a clear teardrop-shaped terrarium: its spiny green arches floated above a mound of fake snow, which I intermittently illuminated by touching the built-in switch that electrified interwoven fairy lights. It was a Christmas present from James’s sister. She had come
- [Pauline Chaponnière-Chaix](https://hekint.org/2025/09/05/pauline-chaponniere-chaix/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Pauline Chaponnière-Chaix (1850–1934) was a nurse and activist born in Geneva, Switzerland. After her husband died, she went to Paris to join the House of Deaconesses of Reuilly, a Protestant religious community founded in 1841 that provided outreach to the poor. Chaponnière-Chaix worked with children whose parents were in prison or in other
- [Caligula revisited](https://hekint.org/2025/09/05/caligula-revisited/) - Caligula, the third Roman Emperor, reigned from 37 to 41 CE and has been described in history as a cruel, perverted tyrant. His full name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Born in 12 CE, he was the son of Germanicus (a beloved Roman general, nephew, adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, and grandson of Augustus)
- [Rudyard Kipling: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/05/rudyard-kipling-medical/) - Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), the British writer best known for The Jungle Book, Kim, and his haunting short stories, lived a life profoundly intertwined with medicine. Though not a physician, Kipling’s experiences of illness, grief, and global travel exposed him to medical realities that shaped both his personal life and his literary imagination. His encounters with
- [Samuel Johnson: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/05/samuel-johnson-medical/) - Samuel Johnson, immortalized as “Dr. Johnson,” was not only the towering man of letters of eighteenth-century England but also a figure whose life was profoundly shaped by medicine—or the lack of it. His Dictionary of the English Language (1755) cemented his place in literary history, yet behind the scholar’s wit and moral wisdom lay a
- [Goethe: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/04/goethe/) - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is universally celebrated as one of Germany's greatest literary figures, the author of Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther. However, his profound contributions to medicine and natural science remain less widely known despite their impact on medical thought and practice. Goethe's approach to medicine was revolutionary for its time,
- [Galen: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/03/galen/) - Few figures in the history of medicine have left a legacy as profound and enduring as Claudius Galenus, better known simply as Galen. Born in Pergamon in 129 CE, Galen was educated in the vibrant intellectual centers of the Greco-Roman world, studying philosophy, anatomy, and medicine in places such as Smyrna, Corinth, and Alexandria. His
- [Fyodor Dostoevsky: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/03/fyodor-dostoevsky/) - Few literary giants have intertwined so intimately with medicine as Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821–1881). His turbulent life and writings reveal an ongoing struggle with chronic illness, psychological torment, and an acute awareness of the body’s fragility. Medicine was not simply a backdrop in his life; it was a decisive force shaping both his biography and
- [Denis Diderot: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/03/denis-diderot/) - Denis Diderot (1713–1784) stands among the most influential figures of the Enlightenment. Best known as editor of the Encyclopédie and as a philosopher, novelist, and art critic, he was also deeply engaged with medical knowledge, both as a personal concern and as an intellectual frontier. Diderot did not write systematic medical treatises, yet his essays,
- [Aristotle: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/03/aristotle/) - Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great, is remembered primarily as a philosopher, yet his contributions to medicine and biology are equally significant. In an age when philosophy, science, and medicine were not rigidly separated, Aristotle sought to understand the natural world through observation and classification. His efforts laid
- [Ernest Hemingway: Medical](https://hekint.org/2025/09/04/ernest-hemingway/) - Ernest Hemingway, a figure of immense influence in the 20th century, is often remembered for his public persona as an adventurer, hunter, and war correspondent. His adventurous life, well-documented and marked by personal struggles, began with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. As an ambulance driver on the Italian front, he was
- [Philosophy of science and medicine X: Aristotle to the early 20th Century](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/philosophy-of-science-and-medicine-x-aristotle-to-the-early-20th-century/) - Hektoen, Philip Liebson, Science, Winter 2017, Aristotle
- [In Aristotle’s footsteps](https://hekint.org/2022/01/31/in-aristotles-footsteps/) - Henri ColtLaguna Beach, California, United States Squatting on a cement slab, the old doctor watched sea urchins bristle their spines in clear Aegean waters. His short brown tunic covered shoulders broad as an oxen’s chest. He flexed his tanned, muscular forearms and clenched his fists, then rolled his cotton trousers up to his knees and
- [Medical terminologies inspired by the animal world](https://hekint.org/2025/09/02/medical-terminologies-inspired-by-the-animal-world/) - Saty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United States In the transitional decades from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, restrictions against human cadaveric dissection gradually dissipated. This gave Italian and French anatomists an opportunity to break away from rigid dogmas and incorrect Galenic (Galen of Pergamon, 129–216 CE) pronouncements. Religious and moral taboos had long prohibited detailed human
- [Beginnings of bedside teaching in Padua: Montanus](https://hekint.org/2018/06/07/beginnings-of-bedside-teaching-in-padua-montanus/) - Medical historians seem to agree that the first teacher of medicine to instruct his students at the bedside was Giovanni Batista de Monte (1498–1552), better known by his Latin name of Montanus. In 1543 Montanus was appointed to the Chair of Medicine at the University of Padua, a state institution of the Republic of Venice.
- [The monastic infirmaries of North Yorkshire](https://hekint.org/2021/06/21/the-monastic-infirmaries-of-north-yorkshire/) - Stephen MartinUK North Yorkshire had many wealthy monasteries with infirmaries to care for sick monks or lay brothers.1 They were founded in the twelfth century with agricultural self-funding, and were finally dissolved by King Henry VIII. Their remains pose as many questions as they answer. The designation of abbey, priory, or friary depended on the
- [Napoleon III, last emperor of France](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/napoleon-iii-last-emperor-of-france/) - The history of 19th century Europe centers largely on the name Napoleon Bonaparte. The original bearer of this name, the Corsican “little corporal”, rose from artillery officer to Emperor of France and ruler of most of Europe. He single-handedly extinguished the embers of the French Revolution, ruled the greater part of Europe for more than
- [Deutsches Apotheken-Museum, Heidelberg](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/deutsches-apotheken-museum-heidelberg/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, England If you find yourself in Heidelberg, you would be well advised to tackle the invigorating walk up to the sixteenth-century castle on the eastern margins of the old city, with its commanding views over the Neckar Basin, or to take the more sedate option of the cable car. The nine-euro entry fee
- [Ulysses S. Grant in health and disease](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/ulysses-s-grant-in-health-and-disease/) - Ulysses S. Grant was the principal commander whose efforts put an end to the Civil War. During his two terms as president after the war, he worked to bring about peace and reconciliation between the former opposing parties. There have been 134 biographies published of Grant, as well as many studies. But while most of
- [Amedeo Modigliani: Sculptor, were it not for lung disease](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/amedeo-modigliani-sculptor-were-it-not-for-lung-disease/) - Henri ColtIrvine, California, United States In late 1908, a Parisian dermatologist named Paul Alexandre introduced a struggling twenty-four-year-old Jewish-Italian artist named Amedeo Modigliani to a friend with whom the young Italian would soon develop a close relationship, the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi (1867–1957). Brancusi found Modigliani a studio close to his own at 14 Cité
- [The Santorini caldera and climate change: Modern explanations for the plagues of Egypt](https://hekint.org/2025/08/28/the-santorini-caldera-and-climate-change-modern-explanations-for-the-plagues-of-egypt/) - Kevin LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States In one of the most famous Bible verses of the Old Testament, the Lord instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh, “This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the
- [Hilary Koprowski and the polio vaccine](https://hekint.org/2025/08/25/hilary-koprowski-and-the-polio-vaccine/) - Eugene KucharzKatowice, Poland Hilary Koprowski (Fig. 1) was born on December 5, 1916, in Warsaw, Poland. At the age of five, he was already playing the piano, and at the age of twelve, began studying at the Warsaw Conservatory of Music. He graduated from Mikołaj Rej High School in Warsaw and then earned a medical
- [The strange death of Nana](https://hekint.org/2025/08/25/the-strange-death-of-nana/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain “Nana was all covered with fine hair; a russet made her body velvety…”—Emile Zola, Nana The French writer Émile Zola (1840–1902), considered the leading representative of literary naturalism in his time,1 observed people and contemporary events in his novels. Zola never ceased to get involved in social, artistic, or literary causes that
- [Inns or coffee houses?](https://hekint.org/2025/08/25/inns-or-coffee-houses/) - JMS PearceHull, England Humans throughout history have resorted to drugs to stimulate or tranquilize their moods and feelings. Most were of herbal origin, the choice determined by their effects, local availability, and trading. But social factors and politics also played a part. Soon after the Republicans executed King Charles 1 in 1649, the dictatorial Oliver
- [Are we culturally tone-deaf?](https://hekint.org/2020/03/02/are-we-culturally-tone-deaf/) - Clara KooNew York, United States The cultural norms of American medicine are speciously like those of traditional Korean culture, but the differences place Korean-American students at a disadvantage. When I began my third year of medical school, a fourth-year student advised, “Just do what you can do be useful.” If there is anything I know
- [Stitches as mending, stitches as healing](https://hekint.org/2021/09/30/stitches-as-mending-stitches-as-healing/) - Kelley SwainOxfordshire, England Knitwear designer and disability-access advocate Kate Davies writes of discovering her love of knitting at university: "The movement of your hands helped you to find a different kind of mind space. You lost yourself in the rhythm of your own industry. You made a thing.”1 There is something extraordinary about taking one
- [Hippocrates by the bedside](https://hekint.org/2020/04/27/hippocrates-by-the-bedside/) - This rather unwell looking patient is being fed or medicated by a physician supposed to be Hippocrates, assisted by a wide-eyed female professional. De regimine acutorum was published in England in the thirteenth century. The image (on the left) is an enlarged historiated initial from the medieval illuminated manuscript (shown on the right). Highlighted Vignette
- [Travelling healers pulls a tooth](https://hekint.org/2020/01/06/travelling-healers-pulls-a-tooth/) - A “travelling healer” has pulled a tooth in front of a large crowd assembled to witness the event. He has advertised his profession by having a garland of teeth hang on the wall behind the scene; and is displaying the tooth as a symbol of his skill, hoping that more customers will follow. Highlighted Vignette
- [“Gentlemen! This is no humbug.”](https://hekint.org/2020/11/23/gentlemen-this-is-no-humbug/) - Summer A. NiaziJack E. RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States The words “Gentlemen! This is no humbug” is one of the most famous statements in the history of medicine.1 They were supposedly uttered by the surgeon John Collins Warren on October 16, 1846, following the first public demonstration of an operation using ether inhalation anesthesia. Yet
- [The neuroscientific legacy of the Vogt family](https://hekint.org/2025/04/17/the-neuroscientific-legacy-of-the-vogt-family/) - Grace O'ConnorRichard BrownHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Introduction Oskar and Cécile Vogt were pioneering neuroscientists who established a brain research center in Berlin, Germany, in the early twentieth century. Their work advanced the field of neuroscience through studies on brain architecture and function, including the mapping of architectonic fields and the study of brain disease pathologies.1
- [The death of Raphael](https://hekint.org/2025/08/21/the-death-of-raphael/) - The famous High Renaissance artist Raffaello Sanzio was working at the court of Pope Julius II when he developed an acute illness that killed him within fifteen days. His body was publicly displayed and mourned in the Vatican, and he was buried in the Pantheon, an honor reserved only for Rome’s most revered figures. No
- [Composing incoordination: The stumbling passages in J.S. Bach’s <i>Flute Partita</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/08/21/composing-incoordination-the-stumbling-passages-in-j-s-bachs-flute-partita/) - Another of Bach’s program passages appears to be in his Flute Partita in A minor for transverse flute. It starts with an “Allemande,” which was...
- [<i>Arrowsmith</i> at 100 years](https://hekint.org/2025/08/21/arrowsmith-at-100-years/) - George ChristopherMichigan, United States Sinclair Lewis’ novel Arrowsmith (1925) is a biography of the fictional physician Martin Arrowsmith that chronicles his life from childhood through the transitions of his medical career. The novel spans the protagonist’s years in medical school and subsequent roles as a hospital house officer, clinician in solo practice, public health official,
- [Thomas Hume’s recollections of the public execution of William Burke](https://hekint.org/2025/08/21/thomas-humes-recollections-of-the-public-execution-of-william-burke/) - Daniel PatroneOneonta, New York, United States In the early nineteenth century, the rapid advancement of anatomical science created a surging demand for human cadavers. Given the woefully inadequate legal supply of cadavers, this demand fueled the rise of a lucrative but illicit industry of graverobbers or "resurrection men" who supplied bodies to anatomists through unscrupulous
- [Dr. Michael Perl: Uncle Mouse’s war and other stories](https://hekint.org/2025/08/21/dr-michael-perl-uncle-mouses-war-and-other-stories/) - Michael Mathias Perl was born in Melbourne, Australia on 22 May 1903, the first child of Jacob and Elizabeth Perl.
- [The very prejudiced H.L. Mencken and his medical views](https://hekint.org/2025/08/14/the-very-prejudiced-h-l-mencken-and-his-medical-views/) - A century has gone by since Henry Louis Mencken wrote his diatribes, some of which he actually called Prejudices, now highly distasteful and taboo. He himself was born in Baltimore in 1880, spoke only German as a child, and during both wars thought the Germans should win. He studied at the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and
- [Premature burial in literature](https://hekint.org/2025/06/26/premature-burial-in-literature/) - Nothing is more terrifying than the thought of being buried alive, of being wrapped in a shroud, bound hand and feet, with no way to escape. This thought has long haunted human imagination. It was a real possibility before and during the 17th to 19th centuries, when numerous documented cases of premature burial, both verified
- [The bridge on the Drina: A literary and historical monument](https://hekint.org/2025/05/14/the-bridge-on-the-drina-a-literary-and-historical-monument/) - Ivo Andrić’s The Bridge on the Drina (originally Na Drini ćuprija), published in 1945, is a monumental novel that spans over four centuries of Balkan history, using the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad as both a literal and symbolic centerpiece. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961, Andrić’s work is a profound meditation
- [Plato's thoughts on illness, medicine, and doctors](https://hekint.org/2025/05/13/platos-thoughts-on-illness-medicine-and-doctors/) - In Plato's philosophical works, particularly in The Republic and Timaeus, we find significant reflections on illness, medicine, and the role of doctors in society. These reflections reveal Plato's holistic understanding of health as harmony and his views on the proper practice of medicine. For Plato, health represents a state of harmony and balance within the
- [The novels of Karl May: Myth, adventure, and cultural impact](https://hekint.org/2025/05/13/the-novels-of-karl-may-myth-adventure-and-cultural-impact/) - Karl May (1842–1912) remains one of the most popular and widely read authors in the German-speaking world, renowned for his prolific output of adventure novels that captivated generations of readers. Although his name is less familiar outside of Europe, his imaginative works—particularly those set in the American West and the Middle East—have left a lasting
- [Medical aspects of the <i>Mystery of Edwin Drood</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/05/12/medical-aspects-of-the-mystery-of-edwin-drood/) - Charles Dickens' last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, remains forever unfinished due to the author's death in 1870, leaving readers with an enduring literary puzzle. While primarily a mystery narrative, the novel contains several fascinating medical elements that provide insight into both Victorian medicine and Dickens' own understanding of human psychology and physiology. Central
- [<i>Le Cid</i> by Pierre Corneille](https://hekint.org/2025/05/12/le-cid-by-pierre-corneille/) - Le Cid is a five-act French play written by Pierre Corneille, first performed in December 1636 in Paris. It is based on Guillén de Castro's Las Mocedades del Cid, which itself draws from the legend of El Cid, a Spanish national hero. Pierre Corneille, born in 1606 and died in 1684, was writing during what
- [Kipling’s books](https://hekint.org/2025/05/07/kiplings-books/) - Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) is best known for his adventure stories and poems centered on India, empire, and childhood. However, his works also contain rich medical implications—both in their depictions of disease and healing and in their reflection of medical attitudes during the height of British colonialism. From tales of tropical illness to narratives involving surgery,
- [Jules Verne's novels](https://hekint.org/2025/05/07/jules-vernes-novels/) - Jules Verne, the celebrated 19th-century French author, is primarily known for his science fiction works that anticipated many technological innovations. His approach to writing was rooted in scientific research: Before penning his novels, he meticulously studied scientific journals and consulted with experts across various fields. This approach allowed him to incorporate authentic medical knowledge into
- [Cuore: The heart of Italian literature and society](https://hekint.org/2025/05/07/cuore-the-heart-of-italian-literature-and-society/) - Cuore, which means "heart" in Italian, is one of the most influential works in Italian literature. Written by Edmondo De Amicis and published in 1886, this novel has become a fundamental text in Italian culture and education. Through its narrative structure and emotional depth, Cuore captures the essence of Italy during a crucial period of
- [Gustav Klimt (1862–1918): Medical aspects](https://hekint.org/2025/08/14/gustav-klimt-1862-1918-medical-aspects/) - The renowned Austrian painter Gustav Klimt lived and worked in Vienna during a period of unprecedented medical advances. The capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire had become a world center for innovation in clinical medicine, therapeutics, and surgery. It had also become the site of a new understanding of psychiatry and psychology, in great part due
- [Lord Melbourne (1779–1848): Mentor of Queen Victoria](https://hekint.org/2025/08/18/lord-melbourne-1779-1848-mentor-of-queen-victoria/) - Lord William Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s well-known prime minister, descended from the great landed aristocracy that had ruled Great Britain for most of the eighteenth century. Some of their members had sat in Parliament for many years, including one who never opened his mouth during his forty-year tenure.1 For most of his life, Lord Melbourne had
- [The deaths of the Romantic poets](https://hekint.org/2025/08/18/the-deaths-of-the-romantic-poets/) - The deaths of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, all occurring within five years of each other, form a tragic trilogy in the history of English Romantic poetry. Each died young, and their ends reflect the turbulence, idealism, and fragility that marked their youthful spirits as well as an era in English poetry.
- [József Antall: Hungarian medical historian and political leader](https://hekint.org/2025/08/18/jozsef-antall-hungarian-medical-historian-and-political-leader/) - During his short tenure as prime minister, József Antall strove to lead a coalition of parties in the early transition period from communism to democracy.
- [What the elders fed us](https://hekint.org/2025/08/18/what-the-elders-fed-us/) - Caleb WamangaKakamega, Kenya Before the rain starts, the vine creeps across the yard. Mboga ya kienyeji (traditional vegetable), the green leaf that rounded off a meal, was what we called them. It is a gift that is never announced, never wrapped, but always there when a child seems pale or a woman staggers back from
- [The medical interests of Sir Walter Raleigh](https://hekint.org/2025/08/18/the-medical-interests-of-sir-walter-raleigh/) - Sir Walter Raleigh was a notable adventurer, explorer, statesman, soldier, and author. Less well-known is his interest in alchemy and medicine.
- [The tooth pullers](https://hekint.org/2018/09/05/the-tooth-pullers/) - Having a tooth pulled in the days before the advent of modern anesthesia and dental techniques could turn out to be a pretty ghastly experience. There was a time when it was done by barbers, by itinerant tooth drawers, or even by blacksmiths. In the village, teeth were often extracted in full view of the
- [James Parsons, physician and linguist (1705–1770)](https://hekint.org/2024/11/14/james-parsons-physician-and-linguist-1705-1770/) - Born in Devon and educated in Dublin, James Parsons studied medicine in Paris and became doctor of medicine at Rheims in 1736. Appointed physician to the public infirmary of St. Giles in 1738, he began an obstetric practice in London and became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He studied antiquities, the fine arts, muscular
- [The “Blue Death:” Cholera’s reign of terror](https://hekint.org/2025/08/14/the-blue-death-choleras-reign-of-terror/) - Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia Cholera—the “Blue Death” and, in the words of one witness, “one of the most ghastly experiences a disease could inflict on a human being”1—emerged in the early 1800s from the Ganges delta, traveling along the routes of global trade2 and religious pilgrimage.3 This waterborne disease could transform proud vessels into floating
- [V.V. Veresaev, another forgotten physician-author](https://hekint.org/2025/08/14/v-v-veresaev-another-forgotten-physician-author/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Dr. Veresaev was born in Tula as Vikenty Vikentyevich Smidowitz in 1867, son of a famous Polish-Catholic physician father and a Russian mother. Raised and educated in Russia, his father established a free-of-charge hospital in Tula. First to introduce sanitary and hygienic principles to the city, his father ironically died in
- [Dr. George Finlayson and his mighty little squirrel](https://hekint.org/2025/08/11/dr-george-finlayson-and-his-mighty-little-squirrel/) - Our squirrel's scientific discoverer was George Finlayson (1790–1823), a Scottish doctor and naturalist.
- [How curious should we be?](https://hekint.org/2025/08/11/how-curious-should-we-be/) - Now a young hospitalist myself, I continually return to visual art as a way to explore the practice of medicine.
- [Did Ernest Hemingway have the Celtic curse?](https://hekint.org/2021/09/24/did-ernest-hemingway-have-the-celtic-curse/) - Philip R. LiebsonChicago, Illinois, United States Considering Ernest Hemingway’s mishaps before he died in 1961 by a self-inflicted shotgun wound, it is surprising that he lived so long. He survived two plane crashes several days apart that left him with a concussion, burns, cracked ribs and vertebrae, and ruptures of the liver, spleen, and kidneys.
- [Childhood cancer: Where my shadow fell](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/childhood-cancer-where-my-shadow-fell/) - In this essay, I reflect on my journey as a pediatric oncologist—from a time when childhood cancer was nearly always fatal to the gradual emergence of cures.
- [Vienna's Volksgarten: A floral historical haven](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/viennas-volksgarten-a-floral-historical-haven/) - The Volksgarten, or "People’s Garden" is a public park known for its formal rose gardens, neoclassical elegance, and historical depth. Established in the early 19th century, it is one of Vienna’s most beloved green spaces, offering aesthetic pleasure and cultural enrichment. It was created on the site of fortifications destroyed by Napoleon’s troops in 1809.
- [The gardens of Versailles](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/the-gardens-of-versailles/) - The story of Versailles begins in the early 17th century when Louis XIII acquired a small hunting lodge surrounded by marshland and woods. However, it was his son, Louis XIV, who envisioned transforming this modest estate into a grand palace that would embody the glory of France and cement his position as the Sun King.
- [Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/thomas-coram-and-the-foundling-hospital/) - We need more Thomas Corams, more philanthropy, and more institutions to give the poor a decent living and fair opportunities.
- [Potpourri Bolognese](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/potpourri-bolognese/) - Bologna is a frequent site for meetings by nephrologists. It is a lovely northern Italian city, easily accessible by air or by train.
- [Virgil and ancient anthrax](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/virgil-and-ancient-anthrax/) - Virgil’s description of the dangers of wearing anthrax-contaminated cloth also appears to have been mirrored in other ancient literature.
- [The Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens ](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/the-sydney-royal-botanic-gardens/) - If you should ask a native for directions to the Botanical Gardens, you are likely to stand corrected that you are looking for the Botanic Gardens. Walking from the diminutive replica of the London’ Hyde Park, you pass the Church of England cathedral to which years ago all but a few misguided Irishman belonged as
- [The botanic gardens of Singapore](https://hekint.org/2025/08/07/the-botanic-gardens-of-singapore/) - The Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a living testament to Singapore's rich history and a vibrant hub for botanical research and conservation. Founded in 1859, they played a significant role in shaping the region's economy and continues to be an important center for scientific knowledge and education. Historically, the Singapore Botanic
- [Keukenhof, Lisse, Netherlands](https://hekint.org/2025/08/05/keukenhof-lisse-netherlands/) - Known as the “Garden of Europe” and located in Lisse, Netherlands, Keukenhof is one of the most beautiful and largest flower gardens in the world. Famous for its display of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and other spring flowers, it covers an area of over 32 hectares, featuring millions of budding bulbs that create interesting designs and
- [Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden: A blend of history, horticulture, and health](https://hekint.org/2025/08/06/shinjuku-gyoen-national-garden-a-blend-of-history-horticulture-and-health/) - The Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden lies in the midst of the bustling metropolis of Tokyo as an oasis of tranquility and natural beauty. Its history dates to the Edo Period (1603-1868), when it was the estate of a feudal lord. The land was originally bestowed upon Kiyonari Naitō by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1590, and it
- [The Sanssouci Botanic Garden in Potsdam](https://hekint.org/2025/08/06/the-sanssouci-botanic-garden-in-potsdam/) - The origins of the Sanssouci Park date back to 1744 when Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, envisioned a summer retreat that would embody his philosophy of “sans souci” — French for “without worry.” He personally designed the palace and its surrounding terraced vineyards, transforming the landscape into a Baroque pleasure garden. The park expanded
- [The Nymphenburg Garden of Munich](https://hekint.org/2025/08/06/the-nymphenburg-garden-of-munich/) - The Nymphenburg Garden in Munich, Germany, was established in the late 17th century as part of the Nymphenburg Palace complex. Commissioned by the Elector Ferdinand Maria and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, it was initially designed in a strict Baroque style by Charles Carbonet and Dominique Girard. It evolved into a Romantic landscape park under Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell in the early 19th century, blending formal geometry with naturalistic elements such as winding paths, lakes,
- [The Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne](https://hekint.org/2025/08/06/the-royal-botanic-gardens-melbourne/) - Situated on the banks of the Yarra River in the heart of Melbourne, the Gardens extends over 38 hectares and houses a collection of more than 8,500 species of plants from around the world, including diverse plant collections such as camellias, rainforest flora, cacti and succulents, roses, Californian species, herbs, perennials, cycads, plants from Southern
- [The Majorelle Garden of Marrakech](https://hekint.org/2025/08/06/the-majorelle-garden-of-marrakech/) - The Jardin Majorelle (Majorelle Garden) is the most famous garden in Marrakech, Morocco, a one-hectare botanical garden particularly famous for its "Majorelle blue" buildings and its extensive collection of cacti. The garden owes its name and early vision to Jacques Majorelle (1886–1962), a French Orientalist painter who fell in love with Morocco during the early
- [Jan Steen: Quack doctors visit lovesick maidens](https://hekint.org/2018/08/30/jan-steen-quack-doctors-visit-lovesick-maidens/) - Like his contemporary Molière, the Dutchman Jan Steen makes fun of quack doctors, often shown in ridiculous costumes visiting young love-sick or pregnant women. In The Lovesick Maiden (Fig. 1, Metropolitan Museum) the diagnosis is suggested by the painting of a Cupid above the door, the bed on the right, and the bed-warmer on the
- [Longwood Gardens: A living pharmacy of history and healing](https://hekint.org/2025/08/05/longwood-gardens-a-living-pharmacy-of-history-and-healing/) - Nestled, Longwood Gardens, spanning over 1,100 acres of meticulously maintained gardens in the rolling hills of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, offers plantings, water fountains, and sunny spaces with forever-blooming flowers and walking paths through woodlands and beautiful sparkling lakes, equally beautiful and stunning. The land that now houses Longwood Gardens has a rich medicinal history dating
- [Abraham Lincoln’s smallpox](https://hekint.org/2021/02/17/abraham-lincolns-smallpox/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden A brutal, bloody civil war had been tearing the United States of America apart for two years when President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863. Four months before his visit, Gettysburg had been the site of a major battle between the secessionist Confederacy of the southern, slave-holding states
- [The 1918 Pandemic—the collective story versus the personal narrative](https://hekint.org/2020/04/06/the-1918-pandemic-the-collective-story-versus-the-personal-narrative/) - Mariella ScerriMellieha, Malta Stalin’s claim that a “single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic”1 reverberates at a time when the world is gripped by fear as it tries to come to terms with a pandemic caused by the latest novel coronavirus, SARS-COV-2. Throughout history, humanity has had to contend with new
- [The <i>Portrait of Doctor Gachet</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/09/17/portrait-of-doctor-gachet/) - Nicholas KangAuckland, New Zealand On a spring evening in New York, a portrait is unveiled before a crowded auction room. It pictures an older man wearing a dark blue coat with luminous green buttons. His elbow rests on a red table beside two yellow books. In front of him is a glass with faded purple
- [Monkeys as barber-surgeons](https://hekint.org/2020/01/06/monkeys-as-barber-surgeons/) - Monkeys play a great role in the work of Coryn (Quirjin) Boel the Younger (1620–1668), engraver of Brussels and Antwerp. Specialized in making engravings of old masters, especially those of David Teniers, he often shows monkeys playing backgammon, giving concerts, or enjoying sophisticated breakfasts. At a time when most of healthcare in Europe was provided
- [The last iron lungs](https://hekint.org/2021/04/12/the-last-iron-lungs/) - Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States In the springtime of my internship year, I rotated onto the polio ward where I learned that poliomyelitis could kill by paralyzing the muscles of breathing. Eight years before, Salk had shown that injection of his vaccine of inactive virus could prevent polio about half the time. By nineteen sixty,
- [The royal botanic gardens at Kew](https://hekint.org/2025/08/05/the-royal-botanic-gardens-at-kew/) - Located in southwest London along the banks of the Thames, Kew Gardens originated in the 18th century from the private botanical interests of Princess Augusta, the mother of King George III. In 1759, she established a nine-acre botanical garden on the grounds of Kew Palace. The gardens expanded under the direction of Sir Joseph Banks,
- [Madrid’s Real Jardín Botánico](https://hekint.org/2025/08/05/madrids-real-jardin-botanico/) - The roots of the Real Jardín Botánico lie in medieval Madrid’s geography and its fortifications designed to secure the frontier between al‑Andalus and the northern Christian kingdoms. After Alfonso VI captured Madrid in 1083, the city expanded and walls built in the 11th–12th centuries enclosed new neighborhoods, transforming it by the late Middle Ages into
- [The Butchart Gardens – Vancouver’s botanical splendor](https://hekint.org/2025/08/05/the-butchart-gardens-vancouvers-botanical-splendor/) - The Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, located near Victoria in British Columbia, are one of the most celebrated horticultural attractions in the world. Spanning over 55 acres of meticulously designed floral displays, they began as the vision of Jennie Butchart in the early 20th century. Their origins are rooted in industry and transformation, when 1904,
- [The Dubai Miracle Garden: A botanical marvel in the desert](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/the-dubai-miracle-garden-a-botanical-marvel-in-the-desert/) - Dubai Miracle Garden establishes itself as an outstanding horticultural marvel in the middle of the Arabian Desert. The 72,000-square-meter botanical garden in Dubai shows what can be achieved in one of the driest areas on Earth, which experiences ten centimeters of yearly rainfall and summer temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius. The project began under the leadership of Abdel Nasser Rahhal to fulfill Dubai's mission of developing world-class attractions that would establish the emirate as a
- [The Cismigiu Gardens in Bucharest ](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/the-cismigiu-gardens-in-bucharest/) - Cismigiu Gardens (Parcul Cișmigiu), the oldest public garden in the Romanian capital Bucharest, spans 14.6 to 17 hectares in the heart of the city. It started as a natural pond called Balta lui Dura neguțătorul (“Lake of Dura the merchant”) that served as a fishing spot in the 17th century before being transformed into a vineyard around a water source that provided relief during the 1795 plague epidemic.
- [The Boston Public Garden: A botanical and medical landmark](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/the-boston-public-garden-a-botanical-and-medical-landmark/) - Situated in the heart of Boston and adjacent to the Boston Common, the Boston Public Garden, established in 1837, was the first public botanical garden in the United States. The Garden exemplifies the city’s long-standing commitment to horticulture, public health, and civic beautification. Beyond its picturesque winding pathways, elegant Swan Boats, and Victorian floral patterns,
- [The Bois de Boulogne of Paris ](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/the-bois-de-boulogne-of-paris/) - The Bois de Boulogne, spanning 2,090 acres on the western edge of Paris, was originally a hunting ground for the kings of France, from King Dagobert, who used this forest to hunt bears and deer, to his grandson Childeric II who gave the forest to the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and to King Philip Augustus, who
- [The magnificent Boboli Gardens of Florence ](https://hekint.org/2025/08/04/the-magnificent-boboli-gardens-of-florence/) - The Boboli Gardens, one the most magnificent Renaissance gardens in Italy, originated in 1549 after Cosimo I de' Medici bought the Pitti Palace to create formal gardens on the hillside behind it. Niccolò Tribolo was the first architect given the task to design the gardens, before other renowned architects such as Bartolomeo Ammannati, Bernardo Buontalenti, and Guilio and Alfonso and Parigi joined the project. A two-century-long collaboration produced
- [Jacob Spon, the French doctor archaeologist](https://hekint.org/2025/07/31/jacob-spon-the-french-doctor-archaeologist/) - Born in 1647 in Lyon, internationally reputed scholar Jacob Spon pioneered the exploration of the monuments of Greece. Following medical studies at Strasbourg, he received his doctorate in medicine from Montpellier (1668) and subsequently practiced in Lyon to a wealthy clientele. He traveled to Italy, Greece, and Constantinople. In 1675–1676, he visited the Levant with
- [The history of chemotherapy](https://hekint.org/2025/07/31/the-history-of-chemotherapy/) - He championed chemotherapy for cancer, having himself worked with mustard gas, and obtained funds from Alfred P. Sloan and Charles F. Kettering of...
- [Augustus Pitt Rivers: Leader in medical anthropology and healthcare understanding](https://hekint.org/2025/07/31/augustus-pitt-rivers-leader-in-medical-anthropology-and-healthcare-understanding/) - Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827–1900) established himself as one of the leading figures who shaped contemporary medical anthropology and archaeology. During his time as a British Army officer (he later received the honorary rank of Lieutenant-General), he studied how different societies handled their health needs and treated their diseases. The medical field became his direct focus when he
- [Sir Mortimer Wheeler (1890–1976): Archaeologist for the people](https://hekint.org/2025/07/31/sir-mortimer-wheeler-1890-1976-archaeologist-for-the-people/) - Renowned for his innovative field methods, Sir Robert Eric Mortimer Wheeler brought archaeology to the people, utilizing media and public education. His work spanned continents, his notable excavations being in Britain and India. Born in 1890 in Glasgow, he studied at the University of London, earning a degree in classics before moving to archaeology. He
- [Grady Memorial Hospital](https://hekint.org/2025/07/31/grady-memorial-hospital/) - For well over a century, Grady Memorial Hospital has been an innovative and vital safety‑net institution for the region’s most vulnerable.
- [Cyriacus of Ancona, father of archaeology (1391–1452)](https://hekint.org/2025/07/30/cyriacus-of-ancona-father-of-archaeology-1391-1452/) - Often referred to as the “Father of Archaeology,” his original name was Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli (Cyriacus). Born in the bustling Italian port city of Ancona, Cyriacus had been celebrated as a pioneer in the rediscovery and preservation of classical antiquity, and unlike many humanists who focused solely on manuscripts, he championed the direct observation of
- [William Cunningham: Economic historian and health advocate (1849–1919)](https://hekint.org/2025/07/30/william-cunningham-economic-historian-and-health-advocate-1849-1919/) - Born in Edinburgh in 1849, Cunningham was deeply influenced by the lingering legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment. He attended the Edinburgh Academy and the University of Edinburgh, studying mathematics and philosophy, then pursued theology at Trinity College, Cambridge and became an ordained Anglican priest. He served as Vicar of Great St Mary’s in Cambridge while
- [Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788–1865) of the "Three‑Age System" — Stone, Bronze, and Iron](https://hekint.org/2025/07/30/christian-jurgensen-thomsen-1788-1865-of-the-three‑age-system-stone-bronze-and-iron/) - Born in Copenhagen in 1788, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen immersed himself in numismatics and antiquities at a young age. His interest in organizing ancient coins and artifacts led to his role in 1819 as the first curator at what would become Denmark's National Museum. In this role, he recognized the need for systematic organization—not for aesthetic
- [Heinrich Schliemann, the archeologist who excavated Troy](https://hekint.org/2025/07/29/heinrich-schliemann-the-archeologist-who-excavated-troy/) - Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) explored and excavated the ruins of Troy, connecting them with the Homeric epics. His life was marked by relentless determination, linguistic genius, and a fascination with antiquity. Born in 1822 in Neubukow, Germany, Schliemann grew up in modest circumstances as the son of a Lutheran pastor. His early fascination with Homer's Iliad
- [Jacques Boucher de Perthes: Scholar of prehistoric man](https://hekint.org/2025/07/29/jacques-boucher-de-perthes-scholar-of-prehistoric-man/) - Jacques-Louis Boucher de Perthes (1788–1868) revolutionized our understanding of human antiquity through his discoveries of flint tools associated with extinct animal remains in the Somme Valley. These findings challenged prevailing notions about the short chronology of humanity and laid the groundwork for modern prehistoric studies. Born in 1788, in Rethel, Ardennes, Boucher de Perthes grew
- [Johann Joachim Winckelmann: Father of art history](https://hekint.org/2025/07/29/johann-joachim-winckelmann-father-of-art-history/) - Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) was an art historian who revolutionized how we understand, categorize, and appreciate ancient art. His aesthetic theories on ancient Greek profoundly influenced European culture, literature, and philosophy. Born in Stendal, Brandenburg, he grew up in poverty as a thin, pale, and frequently ill child, perhaps reflecting the chronic malnutrition and repeated
- [William Flinders Petrie: Champion of scientific archaeology ](https://hekint.org/2025/07/29/william-flinders-petrie-champion-of-scientific-archaeology/) - Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) brought revolutionary change to the study of antiquity by introducing strict excavation protocols and detailed documentation practices. He started his career at the age of nineteen by surveying Stonehenge and producing its first reliable site plan. The Egypt Exploration Fund employed him in 1880 to conduct excavations at Tanis, Naukratis, and Amarna. Through his excavations, Petrie discovered
- [Flavio Biondo, papal secretary and humanist scholar ](https://hekint.org/2025/07/29/flavio-biondo-papal-secretary-and-humanist-scholar/) - Throughout much of the fifteenth century, Flavio Biondo (1392–1463) thrived as a humanist scholar, historian, and antiquarian, establishing the foundations of archaeological and geographical historical research. Born in Forlì, Romagna, in 1392, he began his studies as a notary before moving to Rome in 1433. There he served as papal secretary to Eugene IV (1444) and later under Nicholas V, Callixtus III, and Pius II. When he
- [Sir Arthur Evans: Archaeology visionary](https://hekint.org/2025/07/28/sir-arthur-evans-archaeology-visionary/) - Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941) achieved lasting fame by discovering the Minoan civilization in Crete. Through his systematic Knossos excavations and his later interpretations, he revolutionized our knowledge about European prehistory and societal evolution. Born 1851, in Nash Mills, Hertfordshire, he studied modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he developed an interest in ancient civilizations. After finishing his education, he spent years traveling throughout the Balkans while
- [The Semmelweis Museum of Medical History, Budapest](https://hekint.org/2025/07/28/the-semmelweis-museum-of-medical-history-budapest/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Museums on medical themes are uncommon and generally scattered worldwide. Budapest features the Semmelweis Museum, dedicated to one of Hungary’s greatest physicians and the history of medical advances in Hungary. It is the birthplace and childhood home of Ignaz Semmelweis, born there on July 1, 1818. His father had a grocer’s
- [Brushstrokes and benevolence: Thomas Sully, Samuel Coates, and the Pennsylvania Hospital](https://hekint.org/2025/07/28/brushstrokes-and-benevolence-thomas-sully-samuel-coates-and-the-pennsylvania-hospital/) - When the epidemic struck Philadelphia, Samuel Coates remained in the city to assist citizens and was praised for his efforts.
- [Dr. Willem J. Kolff: A great man](https://hekint.org/2017/03/23/dr-willem-j-kolff-a-great-man/) - George DuneaChicago, IL In MemoriamWillem J. Kolff: A great man Willem Kolff, often called the father of the artificial kidney, died in January 2009, 3 days before his 98th birthday. During his long life he received numerous honors and accolades for his work. Many people thought he should have received the Nobel Prize, but as he once said himself, they
- [White coats](https://hekint.org/2017/06/01/white-coats/) - Waiting / White coats hustle by / nurses of compassion / their gentle, sideway smiles frozen / combating war's legacy
- [Death by dysentery? Artist Frank Russell Wadsworth in Madrid](https://hekint.org/2017/07/25/death-dysentery-artist-frank-russell-wadsworth-madrid/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Though he basked in the Spanish sun, the summer warmth would be his downfall, indeed his early death. Artist Frank Russell Wadsworth of Chicago gravitated towards the vivid colors and picturesque river banks of Spain. He was but a mere thirty-one years of age when he died in 1905 in
- [Cheeseburgers and cursewords](https://hekint.org/2017/08/23/cheeseburgers-and-cursewords/) - In spite of his recent physical decline, he still exudes kindness and warmth. Every day is a painful struggle and although he can no longer swallow...
- [Red right hand: Ectrodactyly as a metaphor](https://hekint.org/2018/03/08/red-right-hand-ectrodactyly-metaphor/) - Ectrodactyly, a rare limb malformation with median clefts of the hands and feet and underdevelopment of their bones, occurs in around 1 in 90,000 births.
- [Jan Steen: Quack doctors visit lovesick maidens](https://hekint.org/2018/09/26/jan-steen-quack-doctors-visit-lovesick-maidens-2/) - Like his contemporary Molière, the Dutchman Jan Steen makes fun of quack doctors, often shown in ridiculous costumes visiting young love-sick or pregnant women. In the Lovesick Maiden (Fig. 1, Metropolitan Museum) the diagnosis is suggested by the painting of a Cupid above the door, the bed on the right, and the bed-warmer on the
- [The professor and the playwright on what it means to care](https://hekint.org/2019/04/16/the-professor-and-the-playwright-on-what-it-means-to-care/) - Both professor and playwright concur that caregiving is less about doctoring than many believe and more about what it means to be human.
- [Grandfather of allergy: Dr. Bill Frankland, the ardent centenarian](https://hekint.org/2019/05/20/grandfather-of-allergy-dr-bill-frankland-the-ardent-centenarian/) - Bill Frankland was determined to unravel the medical mysteries of allergies, even to testing treatments on himself.
- [The hunt for a yellow fever therapy](https://hekint.org/2020/04/29/the-hunt-for-a-yellow-fever-therapy/) - The struggle for protection against exposure to the yellow fever virus continued until Max Theiler developed an effective vaccine in 1937.
- [Botulism: From pork sausages to Botox](https://hekint.org/2020/11/03/botulism-from-pork-sausages-to-botox/) - John Muller called the disease botulism, from botulus, Latin for sausage. Justinus Kerner predicted in 1815-17 that its cause would have medicinal applications .
- [<I>C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the twentieth century</I>](https://hekint.org/2020/11/06/c-miller-fisher-stroke-in-the-twentieth-century/) - C. Miller Fisher, one of the twentieth century’s outstanding neurologists and researchers, revolutionized the management of stroke.
- [A historical analysis of the military’s method of anti-malaria health education through print](https://hekint.org/2020/12/01/a-historical-analysis-of-the-militarys-method-of-anti-malaria-health-education-through-print/) - Pavane Gorrepati Iowa City, Iowa, United States The fight against malaria has largely been successful because of modern scientific advances, but during World War II the fight was supplemented by propaganda posters warning soldiers about malaria just as they were warmed against venereal diseases. Everyone was expected to aid the war effort—women to plant victory gardens
- [The men who defeated syphilis](https://hekint.org/2021/02/16/the-men-who-defeated-syphilis/) - The origins of syphilis have been subject to much debate. The disease has been claimed to be thousands of years old and originally to have evolved from yaws.
- [The germ of laziness](https://hekint.org/2021/04/07/the-germ-of-laziness/) - Charles Wardell Stiles was convinced that hookworm, "the germ of laziness", was responsible for deficiencies ascribed to minorities in the southern states.
- [Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann and <i>Der Struwwelpeter</i>](https://hekint.org/2021/11/12/dr-heinrich-hoffmann-and-der-struwwelpeter/) - Der Struwwelpeter (translated as “Shock-headed Peter,” or “Slovenly Peter”) presented norms and values of the German bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century.
- [Movie review: <i>No Way Out</i>](https://hekint.org/2022/02/02/movie-review-no-way-out/) - No Way Out is a 1950 movie about medicine and racism that deserves more attention than it has received.
- [Robert James Graves MD FRS](https://hekint.org/2022/05/23/robert-james-graves-md-frs/) - Although Robert James Graves is best remembered for his description of hyperthyroidism, he also reformed medical teaching and made several other contributions.
- [Marc Ruffer, founder of paleopathology](https://hekint.org/2023/01/12/marc-ruffer-founder-of-paleopathology/) - Sir Marc Armand Ruffer (1859–1917) is considered the founder of paleopathology, the study of disease in human remains. He was born in Lyons, France...
- [Rachel Fleming and the non-reality of “racial types”](https://hekint.org/2019/02/11/rachel-fleming-and-the-non-reality-of-racial-types/) - The growth study found that so-called “racial types” proved to be a product of nutritional status.
- [Mixing medicine – Religion and science](https://hekint.org/2017/03/24/mixing-medicine-religion-and-science/) - When it comes to religion and science, even if some things remain unknown to us, we practice eternal wisdom with the belief that the benefits are there.
- [What a newspaper advice columnist had to say about smoking…in 1691](https://hekint.org/2024/09/05/what-a-newspaper-advice-columnist-had-to-say-about-smokingin-1691/) - A reader asked, “Whether the taking of Tobacco does a man good or hurt?” The answer, from 1691, may be of interest regarding modern day smoking.
- [Dead people healing alcoholism](https://hekint.org/2017/04/25/dead-people-healing-alcoholism/) - Moldavian villages, Alcohol, Anthropology, Maria Barna, Romania, Spring 2017, Hektoen
- [Female Genital Mutilation: Cultural practices, historical moments, and medical issues](https://hekint.org/2019/10/04/female-genital-mutilation-cultural-practices-historical-moments-and-medical-issues/) - Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) involves injury or removal of female genitalia for non-medical reasons and is globally recognized as a human rights violation.
- [Obstetrical fistula: A malady hidden by shame](https://hekint.org/2021/09/17/obstetrical-fistula-a-malady-hidden-by-shame/) - Obstetrical fistula occurs after prolonged, obstructed labor. When a woman should be celebrating the birth of her child, these women are, instead, devastated.
- [Caravaggio: Beauty and crime intertwined](https://hekint.org/2025/07/24/caravaggio-beauty-and-crime-intertwined/) - Born in Milan in 1571 and orphaned by the plague in 1577, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio made his way to Rome in 1592, where he enrolled the lowlife of the city, its prostitutes, thieves, and other undesirables, in order to paint the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and the Apostles and saints of the New Testament and
- [Titian: The mastery of color and the perils of paint](https://hekint.org/2025/07/24/titian-the-mastery-of-color-and-the-perils-of-paint/) - Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/90–1576) hailed from Pieve di Cadore, near Venice. He trained first in the workshop of the mosaicist Sebastiano Zuccato and subsequently with the acclaimed Giovanni Bellini, while his close relationship and collaboration with the influential Giorgione greatly shaped his early style. Titian’s early commissions included the Scuola di San Antonio frescoes in
- [The Pickering-Platt debate](https://hekint.org/2025/07/24/the-pickering-platt-debate/) - JMS PearceHull, England Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC–43 BC), statesman, scholar, and philosopher once said: If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge. It may therefore be worthwhile to recollect the aspects of hypertension highlighted by the famously protracted saga of the
- [The Celts, early inhabitants of Europe](https://hekint.org/2025/07/24/the-celts-early-inhabitants-of-europe/) - The Celts, a collection of Indo-European tribes, shared common linguistic and cultural traditions. They controlled extensive territories across Europe from 1200 BCE to 400 CE, spanning from Ireland and Scotland to Anatolia and from the Netherlands to Spain and Italy. Greek and Roman observers frequently wrote about the Celts in negative terms but also expressed their admiration for them. The main Celtic
- [The Trinity Plague Column in Budapest](https://hekint.org/2025/07/24/the-trinity-plague-column-in-budapest/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England In the Buda Castle district of the city of Budapest, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, there is an elegant square in front of the famous centuries-old Matthias Church with its imposing Gothic spire. This site was a mosque during the Ottoman invasion before being rebuilt as a church in a Baroque style in
- [Selman Waksman, “father of antibiotics” and conquest of tuberculosis](https://hekint.org/2021/03/26/selman-waksman-father-of-antibiotics-and-conquest-of-tuberculosis/) - Selman Abraham Waksman came to the United States in 1910 and worked for a few years on a farm in New Jersey. Born in a rural town in Ukraine in 1888, he had become familiar as a child with that country’s rich black soil and developed an interest that later influenced the direction of his
- [Ether dome](https://hekint.org/2019/12/02/ether-dome/) - The first operation using ether as anesthesia took place in 1846. This daguerreotype is not of that operation, but rather is a recreation of the event. The patient is unknown, but the surgeons include John Mason Warren, John Collins Warren, George Hayward, and Solomon D. Townsend. Following the first use of ether, the operating theater
- [Mikhael Bulgakov’s “The Steel Windpipe” in <i>A Country Doctor’s Notebook</i>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/31/mikhael-bulgakovs-the-steel-windpipe-in-a-country-doctors-notebook/) - Hektoen, Michael Bloor, Spring 2015, Mikhael Bulgakov, Literary Vignettes
- [Arthur Bispo do Rosário: Creation in psychosis](https://hekint.org/2021/10/08/arthur-bispo-do-rosario-creation-in-psychosis/) - Rebecca Grossman-KahnMinneapolis, Minnesota, United States In a sprawling, cavernous art museum in Buenos Aires, I turned a corner and my eye caught on what appeared to be, from across the room, cardboard. As I walked closer to the display, I saw a large brown rectangle plastered with smaller blue rectangles in two rows. Each blue
- [Applause: Reflections on <i>The Plague</i> and being a doctor in a pandemic](https://hekint.org/2020/05/06/applause-reflections-on-the-plague-and-being-a-doctor-in-a-pandemic/) - Roger Ruiz MoralUniversidad Francisco de Vitoria. Madrid, Spain “I imagine then what the plague must be for you.Yes, - said Rieux - an endless defeat.”1 The COVID-19 lockdown is today in its fifth week. In my country, Spain, these measures have been especially severe. I am confined to my house despite being a physician, since
- [The early death of Alfonso XII](https://hekint.org/2025/07/21/the-early-death-of-alfonso-xii/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain ¿Dónde vas Alfonso XII?¿Dónde vas triste de ti?Voy en busca de MercedesQue ayer tarde no la vi. Where are you going, Alfonso XII?Where are you going so blue?I am looking for MercedesYesterday I did not see her. —Popular Spanish song King Alfonso XII of Spain was born in Madrid on November 28,
- [Dr. David Hosack, physician to Alexander Hamilton](https://hekint.org/2025/07/21/dr-david-hosack-physician-to-alexander-hamilton/) - In the early 1800s, when Napoleon had established his hegemony over most of Europe but was utterly ignored by Jane Austen in her novels, barber-surgeons took care of most of the bodily needs of their clients. They shaved their beards, pulled their teeth, drew their blood, lanced boils, applied leeches, and amputated limbs if necessary.
- [Medicine’s “Naming of the Parts”: Less instrumentalism and more aesthetics?](https://hekint.org/2025/07/21/medicines-naming-of-the-parts-less-instrumentalism-and-more-aesthetics/) - Alan BleakleyPlymouth, United Kingdom The English poet Henry Reed first published “Naming of the Parts” in 1942. English schoolchildren of my generation, born soon after WWII, learned this poem by heart. But we were too young to know, and perhaps our English teachers failed to notice, that the poem is full of sexual innuendo. Ostensibly,
- [A hole in the head and a world of skill](https://hekint.org/2025/07/21/a-hole-in-the-head-and-a-world-of-skill/) - Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia In the dim confines of a ship’s sickbay during the golden age of piracy, the sound of waves might have been interrupted by the rasp and twist of a surgical drill biting into bone. Trepanning—the act of boring into the skull to relieve the pressure on the brain following head trauma—was
- [Islamic medicine](https://hekint.org/2018/11/19/islamic-medicine/) - During the expansion of the Empire of Islam and its ensuing Golden Age, physicians from Spain to Samarkand advanced the medical sciences by reviving existing Greek medicine and adding their own innovations.1 There were many prominent physicians, dating back to the days of the Prophet himself. Often associated with hospitals or schools of pharmacy, some
- [Smetana, his music, his illness](https://hekint.org/2019/09/27/smetana-his-music-his-illness/) - Bedřich (Frederic) Smetana was one of the major figures of nineteenth century European music. Regarded as the founder of the Czech national school of music, he composed The Bartered Bride opera and the symphonic poem "Má Vlast" (My Homeland) with its beloved Vlatava (The Moldau) melody. Like Ludwig van Beethoven, he composed exceptional music even
- [Tango impressions with medical overtones](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/tango-impressions-with-medical-overtones/) - Lazaros TriarhouMacedonia, Thessalonica, Greece Tango and the milonga are more than music or dance genres. They reflect a social phenomenon,1 traditionally embracing emotions, everyday life, culture, poetry, satire, and human concerns. The medical field, with its diverse domains, was no exception in providing a source of inspiration to tango composers,2 whose published scores were consistently
- [Man is a waiting animal](https://hekint.org/2025/07/17/man-is-a-waiting-animal/) - If you require a visa for a certain country, you should arrive at the consulate early in the morning to beat the crowd. You are told to take a number and wait in a crowded room for up to one hour before being called. You pay your money, leave your passport there, and are told
- [Dr. Arnold Kadish: Insulin pump inventor and “Diabetes Dad”](https://hekint.org/2025/07/17/dr-arnold-kadish-insulin-pump-inventor-and-diabetes-dad/) - Paige EdmistonSeattle, Washington, United States A black-and-white photograph of a man covered in tubing and wearing an unwieldy backpack-sized device (Figure 1) beamed from the screen at the front of the classroom. The nurse leading the diabetes education class walked from the podium to a table displaying the latest models of continuous glucose monitors and
- [Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor](https://hekint.org/2019/05/06/otto-von-bismarck-the-iron-chancellor/) - Otto von Bismarck was born into a family of Junkers in Brandenburg in 1815. Becoming prime minister of Prussia at the age of forty-seven in 1862, he remained in power for twenty-eight years. During this time he united Germany under Prussian hegemony; defeated Denmark, Austria, and France in three wars; annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Alsace, and Lorraine
- [Complicating leprosy in the late medieval West](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/complicating-leprosy-in-the-late-medieval-west/) - Much like their clerical counterparts, laypeople in leprosaria were usually provided with secular benefits like high-quality physical care and communal support.
- [Biblical leprosy: A dermatologist’s perspective](https://hekint.org/2023/08/24/biblical-leprosy-a-dermatologists-perspective/) - Harry GoldinSkokie, Illinois, United States The descriptions of "leprosy" in chapter 13 of the Book of Leviticus in the Hebrew Bible are complex and difficult to understand. This confusion has led to misleading modern English translations of biblical “leprosy” such as "malignant,"1 "contagious,"2 and "virulent"3 skin disease. The preferred term for the biblical "leprosy" is
- [Saint Peter and Hansen's disease?](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/saint-peter-and-hansens-disease/) - George Dunea, Art Flashes, Fall 2015, ulnar nerve, Saint Peter, Hektoen
- [Palo Seco: A leper colony in Panama](https://hekint.org/2022/12/16/palo-seco-a-leper-colony-in-panama/) - Enrique Chaves-CarballoOverland Park, Kansas The history of leprosy goes back to antiquity and is replete with unscientific prejudices, including the belief that the disease was highly contagious. Therefore, lepers were ostracized from society. It was not until the nineteenth century that Armauer Hansen (1841–1912), a Norwegian physician versed in histopathology, published in 1874 his findings
- [Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces: Murder, charity, & leprosy](https://hekint.org/2024/03/28/byzantine-emperor-john-tzimisces-murder-charity-leprosy/) - Though Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces (b. 925–d. 976) rose to power through murder, he consistently displayed a marked benevolence towards the sick and poor.
- [Leprosy and armadillos: Handle with care](https://hekint.org/2022/08/31/leprosy-and-armadillos-handle-with-care/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) is a chronic, disfiguring, and handicapping infectious disease. It was known in the ancient world, and evidence of the disease has been found from 2000 B.C.1 In the sixth and seventh centuries it spread in Europe, peaking in incidence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.2 The disease may have
- [Carville](https://hekint.org/2017/02/23/carville/) - Hansen's Disease, Sidney Levyson, Spring 2015, Michelle Lott, Gerhard Amauer Hansen, Famous Hospitals,
- [Spontaneous regression of cancer](https://hekint.org/2025/07/14/spontaneous-regression-of-cancer/) - Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Unexplainable events have always intrigued people. At the top of this list of the uncommon and perplexing is spontaneous cure or regression of cancer. A cure requires that the lesion disappear completely, never to return, letting the person live for a substantial period, and to later succumb from some other
- [Jane Campbell Munro in Regency India](https://hekint.org/2025/07/14/jane-campbell-munro-in-regency-india/) - Stephen MartinThailand Jane Campbell1 (1790–1850) was catapulted from humble beginnings on a farm in Georgian Scotland2 to a life of stresses and medical danger in India. When her uncle died unexpectedly, Jane’s father inherited Craigie House,3 a Scottish mansion by the river in Ayr. At age nineteen, Jane met and married4 a fellow Scot, Colonel
- [Below decks, a different war](https://hekint.org/2025/07/14/below-decks-a-different-war/) - Richard de GrijsSydney, Australia In October 1770, H.M. Bark Endeavour limped into the port of Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia), after having almost foundered on the Great Barrier Reef. The hardy crew of Captain James Cook (1728–1779), although renowned for their good health throughout the three-year voyage (1768–1771), soon fell
- [Stigma and truth in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” (1926)](https://hekint.org/2025/07/14/stigma-and-truth-in-arthur-conan-doyles-the-adventure-of-the-blanched-soldier-1926/) - Shreya SharmaLondon, Ontario, Canada Throughout history, visible illness has been feared, medically and socially. Diseases with physical manifestations such as leprosy have carried a severe stigma, often leading to misdiagnoses, isolation, and discrimination. But what happens when fear, rather than science, dictates medical care? Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier”
- [<i>The Potato Eaters</i>: Brushstrokes of sickness and sustenance](https://hekint.org/2021/08/02/the-potato-eaters-brushstrokes-of-sickness-and-sustenance/) - Jeanne DsouzaManipal, India One wants to be an honest man, one is so, one works as hard as a slave but still one cannot make both ends meet . . . One is afraid of making friends, one is afraid of moving, like one of the old lepers . . .– Vincent Van Gogh, Autumn
- [Sir Frederick Treves, who operated on King Edward VII](https://hekint.org/2021/02/03/sir-frederick-treves-who-operated-on-king-edward-vii/) - Frederick Treves was born in Dorchester in 1853 and studied medicine at the London Hospital Medical College. He gained fame as Royal Surgeon to Edward VII, operating on his appendix just two days before the planned coronation. His decision to operate on June 24, 1902, caused the coronation to be postponed, and considering that the
- [Michel de Montaigne in his circular library](https://hekint.org/2020/03/20/michel-de-montaigne-in-his-circular-library/) - At the age of thirty-eight, in 1571, the aristocratic Michel de Montaigne retired from public life and “servitude at the court” in order to spend in his château “what little remains of his life, now more than half had run out.” He passed the next ten years or so “in the bosom of the learned
- [The homemaker](https://hekint.org/2017/03/09/the-homemaker/) - Hektoen, Jessica Harder, Poetry, Spring 2011, Wolfgang Wander
- [Theodor Meynert](https://hekint.org/2021/11/18/theodor-meynert/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom Theodor Meynert (1833-1892) (Fig 1) was an eminent if eccentric neuropathologist and psychiatrist. His original work had an impact not just on medicine but on the philosophy of the mind and the “history of materialism.”1 Modern brain research attempts to unravel the intricacies of human brain-mind relationships, much of which
- [When children die](https://hekint.org/2017/03/04/when-children-die/) - Cheese Scones, Fall 2010, Head Injury, Pineal gland tumor, Radiotherapy, Susan Woldenberg Butler, Hektoen
- [Did Macbeth have syphilis?](https://hekint.org/2020/01/13/did-macbeth-have-syphilis/) - Eleanor J. Molloy Dublin, Ireland Introduction Syphilis was endemic in Elizabethan England and it was estimated that nearly 20% of the population of London were infected.1 The signs and symptoms were commonly known to the average person and would be potentially recognizable to the audience in Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare mentions syphilis more times than any
- [“Scarlet letters” — The depiction of scarlet fever in literature](https://hekint.org/2020/04/28/scarlet-letters-the-depiction-of-scarlet-fever-in-literature/) - Emily BoyleDublin, Ireland Scarlet fever, named for the erythematous skin rash that may accompany streptococcal infections (Fig 1), is often considered a disease of Victorian times. Associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality (up to 25%) when epidemics were common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe and the US,1,2 it is seen less
- [Visualizing Mozart](https://hekint.org/2018/05/15/visualizing-mozart/) - Vincent de LuiseNew Haven, Connecticut, United States The music, life, and legacy of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, 1756-1791) continue to fascinate and enthrall.1,10,15,19, Footnote 1 Mozart has been the subject of more books, articles, and commentary than any composer in the Western canon. Mozart brought Classical style to its apotheosis, creating
- [The Carpathian wolves of Saki](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/the-carpathian-wolves-of-saki/) - The relationship between wolves and humans is old and complex. It oscillates between hostility and cooperation and eventually results in domestication as dogs. In Norse mythology, wolves were a powerful force destined to bring about the end of the world. To scientists today, wolves offer an invaluable window into the complexities of mammalian physiology, as
- [Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680): Genius of the Baroque](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/gian-lorenzo-bernini-1598-1680-genius-of-the-baroque/) - Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a sculptor and architect whose work fundamentally transformed the artistic landscape of 17th-century Baroque Europe. He created works that broke free from classical restraint, introducing unprecedented movement and theatrical drama into stone, and he was able to create moments of intense emotion and action in static marble. His masterpiece Apollo and
- [Eating goat](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/eating-goat/) - The goat was among the first animals to be domesticated, around 10,000 years ago, in Western Iran and the Euphrates River valley, reflecting its importance as a reliable source of meat and milk. It is primarily eaten in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and it is particularly popular in India, Nigeria, and Mexico, where it
- [Artists at war](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/artists-at-war/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888), author and poet, served as a nurse during the United States Civil War. In 1862, she worked at the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, Washington, DC, where she found appalling conditions. She attended the wounded, fed them, and assisted at operations until she contracted severe typhoid fever herself. She
- [John B. Murphy, “The surgical genius of his generation”](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/john-b-murphy-the-surgical-genius-of-his-generation/) - Barbara MeraEmma RyanJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States At the end of the 1800s, the art of surgery was changing. The almost universal usage of anesthesia, coupled with the growing support of germ theory and the beginnings of antiseptic surgery, enabled people to undergo less painful and much safer procedures. More complicated operations could now be
- [More than a meal: How school lunch became a lifelong lesson](https://hekint.org/2025/07/10/more-than-a-meal-how-school-lunch-became-a-lifelong-lesson/) - Scarlett SaittaJonesboro, Arkansas, United States I first began to question the US food system when my friend’s father died of a heart attack in his late thirties. A few days after the funeral, my friend’s mother kindly served us boxed mac and cheese stamped “low sugar.” She was grieving, overwhelmed, and trying her best to
- [Medical portraits of Max Liebermann](https://hekint.org/2024/11/07/medical-portraits-of-max-liebermann/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Max Liebermann was one of Germany's most influential painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, recognized primarily for his Impressionist style and leadership in German modernism. Durin his long career, Liebermann painted several medical persons who achieved considerable recognition during his time and are still regarded as pioneers in
- [Book review: <i>Galen: An Anthology</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/07/03/book-review-galen-an-anthology/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Galen was born in 129 AD in Pergamon, an important Greco-Roman city of the Hellenistic period in Asia Minor. Today the remnants and ruins of this ancient city are sited in Bergama, a city in northwest Turkey. Galen started learning his medical craft in Pergamon while simultaneously attending lectures in philosophy.
- [Dame Nellie Melba, the great Australian coloratura soprano](https://hekint.org/2025/07/03/dame-nellie-melba-the-great-australian-coloratura-soprano/) - The name Melba comes up nowadays mainly in the context of two popular food items. The first is a widely popular desert, Peach Melba, created in 1892 by the famous French chef Auguste Escoffier for a dinner party given by the Duke of Orleans at the Savoy Hotel to honor the success of the opera
- [Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor of all time](https://hekint.org/2025/07/03/enrico-caruso-the-greatest-tenor-of-all-time/) - Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) possessed a voice so remarkable for its power, range, and emotional expressiveness that its distinctive timbre was instantly recognizable. His versatility is illustrated by an incident in Philadelphia when the baritone about to sing the "Coat Song" in La Boheme suddenly lost his voice. Caruso stepped in and sang the aria with
- [Marie de’ Medici, the multiparous queen](https://hekint.org/2025/07/03/marie-de-medici-the-multiparous-queen/) - The Louvre Museum in Paris displays the cycle of twenty-four large-scale paintings by Peter Paul Rubens of scenes from the life of Marie de’ Medici, one of the most influential and controversial figures in French royal history. Originally commissioned by Marie for her Luxembourg palace, the cycle is now displayed in the Louvre’s Galerie Medicis.
- [Louis XIV’s anorectal fistula and its influence on surgical innovation](https://hekint.org/2025/07/03/louis-xivs-anorectal-fistula-and-its-influence-on-surgical-innovation/) - Neal ChanBoston, Massachusetts, United States King Louis XIV—also known as the Sun King—ruled France from 1643 to 1715. He not only expanded France's territorial and cultural influence but solidified his status as a sovereign ruler only a half-step below a god. Through absolute control of the nobility, gentry, and landowners, he made France the dominant
- [Lament to measles](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/lament-to-measles/) - Nazan Bilgel, Winter 2014, Hektoen, measles, Ceyhun Atuf Kansu, infectious diseases
- [The bubonic plague in Eyam](https://hekint.org/2020/03/11/the-bubonic-plague-in-eyam/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In medicine most instances of outstanding acts of heroic human courage relate to individual patients or to their attendant doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Here is a unique example of the collective self-sacrifice of a tiny rural community, which probably saved the lives of thousands. The year is 1665. The Great
- [Making history by eradicating Ebola](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/making-history-by-eradicating-ebola/) - Kenneth Okpomo, Spring 2016, ebola, infectious diseases, Hektoen
- [Dandy fever in New Orleans, 1828](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/dandy-fever-in-new-orleans-1828/) - Antoinette van der Kuyl, Summer 2015, Infectious Diseases, New Orleans, dengue, Hektoen
- [Ernest Black Struthers: missionary life, kala azar, and military strife](https://hekint.org/2017/04/19/ernest-black-struthers-missionary-life-kala-azar-and-military-strife/) - Peter KopplinToronto, Canada In 1934 the third edition of Cecil’s A Textbook of Medicine contained a chapter by an academically obscure missionary in China.1 Russell Cecil, still editing the book by himself with only the help of a neurology colleague, chose Ernest Black Struthers to write about kala azar (visceral leishmaniasis). Most North American physicians
- [A disease of society: cholera through the ages](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/a-disease-of-society-cholera-through-the-ages/) - Khameer Kishore Kidia, Fall 2013, cholera, Guy de Maupassant, John Snow, infectious diseases
- [David Bruce, discoverer of brucellosis](https://hekint.org/2020/04/20/david-bruce-discoverer-of-brucellosis/) - Early life Every medical student would be expected to know something about brucellosis, though quite unlikely to ever see a case. He would have to know that the disease in man may be caused by the Brucella of goats, swine, or cows, but apparently not by that of dogs, foxes, or fish. Bright students might
- [Polio conundrums](https://hekint.org/2018/01/02/polio-conundrums/) - Denis GillDublin, Ireland For most children, infection with the polio virus caused no symptoms or a minor illness. But about 1% of those infected experienced paralysis of one or both lower limbs. Worse still, bulbar paralysis could lead to the inability to breathe. The effects of polio were devastating for a previously well child. Polio
- [Smallpox inoculation: prelude to vaccination](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/smallpox-inoculation-prelude-to-vaccination/) - Art Boylston, Fall 2014, Infectious Diseases, James Jurin, Hektoen
- [Chemical origins of terrestrial biology](https://hekint.org/2023/08/03/chemical-origins-of-terrestrial-biology/) - David GreenChicago, Illinois, United States As an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950s, I attended a lecture by Harold C. Urey, a Nobel laureate. The subject of his lecture was the origin of life, and he described an experiment that he and his graduate student, Stanley Miller, had performed at the University
- [Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield: Inventor of the CT scanner](https://hekint.org/2022/09/27/godfrey-newbold-hounsfield-inventor-of-the-ct-scanner/) - Godfrey Hounsfield is not familiar to most, yet his invention of the CT (Computerized Tomography) scanner is one of the greatest advances since X-rays...
- [The first description of DNA: A six million dollar letter from Francis to Michael Crick](https://hekint.org/2020/08/04/the-first-description-of-dna-a-six-million-dollar-letter-from-francis-to-michael-crick/) - Marshall Lichtman Rochester, New York, United States In the April 25, 1953 issue of the biomedical journal Nature, three articles were published on the structural characteristics of DNA. One was a three-dimensional model of DNA constructed by James Watson and Francis Crick of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, who did no experiments to arrive at their
- [The Rockefeller Institute and the growth of cell biology](https://hekint.org/2017/04/27/the-rockefeller-institute-and-the-growth-of-cell-biology/) - Adil MenonBrookline, Massachusetts, United States In 1995 Nobel-winning cell biologist George Palade stated that “a newborn baby needs, of course, a friendly, comfortable cradle, which was provided by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and thus became the American cradle of cell biology.”1 This essay explores the unique aspects of this cradle, which nurtured the
- [<i>Star Wars</i> and medical progress: A lesson to be learned from fiction](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/star-wars-and-medical-progress-a-lesson-to-be-learned-from-fiction/) - John Massie, Winter 2016, Science, Star Wars, Hektoen
- [George Bradford Brainerd: Innovator of laryngeal photography](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/george-bradford-brainerd-innovator-of-laryngeal-photography/) - Hektoen, Rebekah Abramovich, Winter 2016, Science, George Brainerd, voicebox
- [Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen and X-rays](https://hekint.org/2023/06/30/wilhelm-conrad-rontgen-and-x-rays/) - Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, England The name Röntgen will be familiar to most for his discovery of X-rays on November 8, 1895. This date is now celebrated as the International Day of Radiology. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born in Lennep, Germany on March 27, 1845. The house where he was born is now looked after
- [Paul Ehrlich: From aniline dyes to the magic bullet](https://hekint.org/2018/10/10/paul-ehrlich-from-aniline-dyes-to-the-magic-bullet/) - George DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States To understand Paul Ehrlich, the man who developed the first effective cure for syphilis, we must dial back to 1826. In that year, a German scientist called Otto Unverdoren isolated from indigo a volatile organic substance that smelled like rotten fish. Other scientists followed him and claimed to have isolated
- [John Hunter, his wolf dogs, and the inherited smiles of Pomeranians](https://hekint.org/2021/11/05/john-hunter-his-wolf-dogs-and-the-inherited-smiles-of-pomeranians/) - Stephen MartinUnited Kingdom John Hunter, 1728-1793, was a polymathic doctor. Besides being an anatomist and clinician, he was also interested in early genetics, exemplified by his “Observations tending to shew that the Wolf, Jackal, and Dog, are all of the Same Species.”1 Hunter presented this paper to the Royal Society in 1787. (Fig 1) His
- [Mankind and the camel: An old romance](https://hekint.org/2022/09/06/mankind-and-the-camel-an-old-romance/) - James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States “The camel is a horse designed by a committee.” This quotation is attributed to Sir Alec Issigonis (1906–1988), a British car designer who worked for the Morris Minor Company and went on to design the Austin Mini. He was knighted in 1969 for the success of his design.
- [The man behind the bottle](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/the-man-behind-the-bottle/) - Mariam BanoubEmma RyanJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States “Ahhh, the pause that refreshes.” “Things go better with Coke.” “Taste the feeling.” “So refreshing, so welcome, so everywhere.” These phrases may elicit a feeling of warmth and joy. Or the feeling of a crisp, cold Coca-Cola on a hot summer’s day. They are meant to encourage the
- [René Descartes](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/rene-descartes/) - JMS PearceHull, England René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. So profound and diverse were his writings1,2 that this is no more than a slight sketch of his extraordinarily original ideas and his contributions to medicine. A year after his birth in Touraine, his mother died in childbirth and his grandmother cared
- [Doc Holliday: The deadly legacy of a dying man](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/doc-holliday-the-deadly-legacy-of-a-dying-man/) - Mariam BanoubBarbara MeraEmma RyanJulius BonelloPeoria, Illinois, United States Throughout history, tuberculosis (TB) has been known by names such as the white plague, king's evil, consumption, and scrofula. Estimates state TB has claimed the lives of up to five billion people throughout human history. While COVID-19 temporarily claimed the title of the world's most lethal disease
- [Jacques-Louis David’s portrayal of Lavoisier](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/jacques-louis-davids-portrayal-of-lavoisier/) - JMS PearceHull, England In the 1780s, a period of rumbling social unrest in France, the lives of two famous men, a scientist and an artist, would interact. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) is often associated with the discovery of oxygen; Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) was the preeminent neoclassical artist. Lavoisier was a French nobleman, justly celebrated for
- [Pine Rest and the Dutch Reformed vision: A historical perspective on mental health care in West Michigan](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/pine-rest-and-the-dutch-reformed-vision-a-historical-perspective-on-mental-health-care-in-west-michigan/) - Nicole BuozisGrand Rapids, Michigan, United States Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services is a nonprofit organization providing comprehensive mental healthcare services in Michigan. With a 220-acre campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and nineteen outpatient locations across the state, Pine Rest is the largest freestanding behavioral health provider in Michigan and the third largest in the
- [The cosmonaut's body: Medical politics and Soviet space medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/the-cosmonauts-body-medical-politics-and-soviet-space-medicine/) - Martine MussiesUtrecht, The Netherlands When Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth on April 12, 1961, his body represented more than human achievement—it embodied a radical reimagining of medicine's role in space travel.10 The Soviet space program transformed cosmonauts into living laboratories where medical science, political ideology, and technological innovation converged. This transformation reveals how the USSR weaponized
- [From genocide to dream: The journey of a Rohingya refugee student](https://hekint.org/2025/06/30/from-genocide-to-dream-the-journey-of-a-rohingya-refugee-student/) - Mohammed SirajKutupalong Refugee Camp-7, Bangladesh I was born in a small village called Nanther Daung, near the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. My family and the entire Rohingya community have faced discrimination, persecution, political exclusion, and genocide in Myanmar for more than seventy-five years. Following the 1962 military coup by General Ne Win, the regime institutionalized racism. The
- [From poppy to morphine and heroin](https://hekint.org/2023/05/30/from-poppy-to-morphine-and-heroin/) - JMS PearceHull, England Among the remedies which it has pleased almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.—Thomas Sydenham, 1680 The controversial pharmaceutical company Farbenfabriken Bayer AG* had an important role in the development of morphine, heroin, and aspirin, the most effective and widely
- [The smell of burning rubber: The fatal illness of George Gershwin](https://hekint.org/2019/03/08/the-smell-of-burning-rubber-the-fatal-illness-of-george-gershwin/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, USA On the morning of Monday July 12, 1937, New Yorkers who had just suffered through five days of a heat wave that left thirty-eight people dead, awoke to read on the front page of the New York Times about the death of George Gershwin, a native son of their city.
- [Love and death; Painting the farewell](https://hekint.org/2021/08/30/love-and-death-painting-the-farewell/) - Giovanni CeccarelliRome, Italy When Ferdinand Hodler met Valentine Godé-Darel, a thirty-five-year-old woman divorced from a Sorbonne professor ruined by gambling, at the Kursaal in Geneva at the end of 1908 or beginning of 1909, he was already a famous painter. His two paintings Nighta and Day,b in which “the same spirit permeates all things, manifesting
- [The bullet in Garibaldi’s ankle](https://hekint.org/2020/03/16/the-bullet-in-garibaldis-ankle/) - Giuseppe Garibaldi will forever be remembered as the greatest hero of the Italian risorgimento and struggle for independence. Even today there is no city in Italy, large or small, that has not raised a statue in his honor. He had been popular even before Italian unification, throughout Europe and especially in England. Had he not
- [Pedanius Dioscorides: The first encyclopedia of plants and drugs](https://hekint.org/2018/10/17/the-first-encyclopedia-of-plants-and-drugs-pedanius-dioscorides/) - Pedanius Dioscorides (c.29-90 AD) lived in the time of the notorious Roman Emperor Nero and is believed to have traveled widely with his armies, which gave him an opportunity to study and collect a wide variety of medicinal plants. Born in the town of Anazarbius, in what now is southern Turkey close to the Syrian
- [Of bears, danger, and medical wonders](https://hekint.org/2025/06/26/of-bears-danger-and-medical-wonders/) - Bears are formidable animals, unbeatable in strength and resilience, some weighing over a thousand pounds. Some grizzly and polar bears reach massive sizes and with their muscular build, sharp claws, and powerful jaws can kill their prey swiftly and efficiently. Although bears are powerful and robust, they are subject to various medical conditions. They can
- [Pursuing "conclusions infinite": The divine inspiration of Georg Cantor](https://hekint.org/2021/04/12/pursuing-conclusions-infinite-the-divine-inspiration-of-georg-cantor/) - Sylvia KarasuNew York, New York, United States There is a “fine line between brilliance and madness”: the distinction, for example, between a “revolutionary” mathematical theory and psychotic thinking may well have to do with what can be done with the theory, i.e., its “significant results.”1 “The mentally ill mathematician” is like the “knight errant, mortified
- [Book review: <i>The Science Lover’s Guide to London</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/06/26/book-review-the-science-lovers-guide-to-london/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England London, one of the great capital cities of the world, has over the centuries provided writers with inspirational material for both fiction and non-fiction. Famous writers in the first group range from Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, and Charles Dickens to Virginia Woolf and George Orwell in the twentieth century.
- [Helen of Troy: A literary and historical consideration of her role as an ancient Egyptian healer](https://hekint.org/2025/06/23/helen-of-troy-a-literary-and-historical-consideration-of-her-role-as-an-ancient-egyptian-healer/) - Araam AbboudDayton, Ohio, United States Helen of Troy is typically remembered as the woman whose face launched a thousand ships, a passive figure at the center of a patriarchal epic. But to consider Helen solely as the object of desire and the catalyst of war is to flatten her literary and historical possibilities. Across ancient
- [Bells, whistles and rattles: Something to get your teeth into](https://hekint.org/2025/06/23/bells-whistles-and-rattles-something-to-get-your-teeth-into/) - Christopher DuffinLondon, United Kingdom In the past, teething was seen as a dangerous period in the life of a young child. Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), an English herbalist and apothecary, believed that this time of childhood development was a “necessary evil” and that children were in considerable danger of dying from fevers and convulsions that came
- [Criminal physicians](https://hekint.org/2025/06/20/criminal-physicians/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Several doctors in history achieved notoriety for committing murders or for participating in reigns of terror. They range from the British murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen (1910)1 to Joel Le Secournec,2 convicted in France for crimes against hundreds of victims. The surgeon and historian Dr. John Alexandre Olivier Exmling (or Esquemeling) (1646–1798)
- [Doctor and dictionary](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/doctor-and-dictionary/) - Hektoen, George Dunea, Winter 2013, Literary Vignettes, William Chester Minor, James Murray
- [William Harvey’s neurology](https://hekint.org/2025/06/16/william-harveys-neurology/) - JMS PearceHull, England This distinguished physician, the greatest physiologist the world has seen, and the brightest ornament of our College.—William Munk1 William Harvey (1578–1657) was born in Folkestone, Kent, and attended King’s School Canterbury before proceeding to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated MD from Padua (1602) and FRCP (1607) and was elected physician
- [The snake, the staff, and the healer](https://hekint.org/2021/08/13/the-snake-the-staff-and-the-healer/) - Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel Introduction In some ancient cultures, especially around the Near East, the snake was involved in healing. Today this seems counterintuitive. There are as many as 130,000 deaths from snake bites worldwide each year and three times that number of amputations and severe disabilities. Ophidiophobia is one of the more common phobias,
- [Animality revisited in times of the coronavirus: A fable](https://hekint.org/2020/05/06/animality-revisited-in-times-of-the-coronavirus-a-fable/) - Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States Imagine, as painters have done, representatives of animal species congregated in an assembly (Fig. 1). A man comes to address this motley crowd in this way: “You guys [he purposefully adopts this condescending language] have recently wronged us. Let me start by reminding you that you did not discover fire;
- [Unnamed surgeon](https://hekint.org/2019/11/14/unnamed-surgeon/) - In this painting an unknown Netherlandish artist features some of the attributes of a surgeon’s profession: a skull, a tool for cauterizing skulls, a saw, and several keys on the surgeon's belt. The unnamed surgeon seems composed, serious, with a firm jaw and wrinkled eyes. This is fitting of his position and reputation among the
- [Did Salvador Dali follow the prolactin discovery in his painting of the fountain of milk?](https://hekint.org/2019/11/12/did-salvador-dali-follow-the-prolactin-discovery-in-his-painting-of-the-fountain-of-milk/) - Michael YafiHouston, Texas, United States The Fountain of Milk Spreading Itself Uselessly on Three Shoes by Salvador Dali remains one of his most enigmatic works. It shows a nude woman on a pedestal, milk flowing from her breasts, while an emaciated man is staring at her.1 As he was completing the painting, Dali may have
- [The plague of ergotism and the grace of God](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/the-plague-of-ergotism-and-the-grace-of-god/) - Wilson Engel, Art Flashes, Fall 2015, Grunewald, ergotism, Hektoen
- [The fisherman's lasagna: A love story about prescriptive photomontage and anorexia](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-fishermans-lasagna-a-love-story-about-prescriptive-photomontage-and-anorexia/) - Nancy GershmanChicago, Illinois, USALauren Lazar SternPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Can Sally,1 a 32-year old struggling with anorexia, also be a responsible student nurse on an eating disorder unit? The answer is never under-estimate the power of denial.2 The very qualities that masked Sally’s obsessive thinking about fat and the next meal were just what the job
- [<I>Two Scottish tales of medical compassion</I>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/two-scottish-tales-of-medical-compassion/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Dr. John Raffensberger has served both a literary and humanistic cause by placing in our hands two stories that highlight the most admired traits in a physician, the traits of empathy and understanding that patients and their families require. This slim but handsome volume brings together two Scottish tales
- [The liver in culture and literature](https://hekint.org/2025/06/12/the-liver-in-culture-and-literature/) - The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. Dark and heavy with blood, it was often viewed as the seat of the soul, the source of passion, a tool to predict the future, or a symbol of suffering and resilience. In Greek mythology, Prometheus is bound to a rock for stealing fire from
- [The history of typhus](https://hekint.org/2025/05/08/the-history-of-typhus/) - Typhus exanthematicus is an old disease long confused with typhoid fever. Some historians believe that it caused the Plague of Athens as described by Thucydides, and that it was introduced into Europe by the Spanish soldiers returning from the Americas in the sixteenth century. It likely caused the severe epidemic occurring during the confrontations between
- [History of human water channels](https://hekint.org/2025/05/08/history-of-human-water-channels/) - Mostafa ElbabaDoha, Qatar Water is the essence of life; it serves as the fundamental solvent for many biochemical processes. Different theories have examined how life began on Earth.1 One of the most popular scientific theories suggests that hot chemicals raised through the sea floor enabled a chemical reaction between hydrogen and carbon, producing simple organic
- [Virginia Woolf and the <i>Common Reader</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/05/08/virginia-woolf-and-the-common-reader/) - Virginia Woolf (1882–1941), one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, remains well worth reading. Lovers of English literature admire her wonderful style, and advocates of women's rights appreciate the sentiments she expressed in her essay "A Room of One’s Own". During most of her life she was afflicted by intense mood swings
- [Akshamsaddin from a medical point of view                ](https://hekint.org/2025/05/12/akshamsaddin-from-a-medical-point-of-view/) - The Ottoman scholar Akshamsaddin (Muhammad Shams al-Din bin Hamzah, 1389–1459) is remembered more often as the mentor and advisor to Sultan Mehmed II rather than as a physician who contributed remarkably to the medical knowledge of his time. Born in Damascus, he acquired in his youth a significant knowledge of medicine and pharmacology, derived from
- [Chicago medicine, then and now](https://hekint.org/2025/05/14/chicago-medicine-then-and-now/) - In the mid-19th century, Chicago was a city battling for survival against serious public health threats. Poor sanitation and contaminated water sources fueled devastating outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, and smallpox. Mortality rates were high. Early healthcare was rudimentary; formal medical training was not always required; and licensing laws were lax. Many relied on folk remedies for
- [A rare case report: Near amputation of a leg from a falling book](https://hekint.org/2025/05/15/a-rare-case-report-near-amputation-of-a-leg-from-a-falling-book/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Traumatic injuries are common, resulting from war, natural disasters, workplace mishaps, accidents, or sports. But severe bodily damage occurring in a library? In 1359, the famous Italian poet, humanist, and philosopher from Arezzo, Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), was reading a book in his library written by one of his admired Roman scholars, Cicero.
- [Wine in disease and health](https://hekint.org/2025/05/15/wine-in-disease-and-health/) - In ancient times The history of wine as medicine dates to ancient Egypt and its Ebers Papyrus (circa 1550 BCE), which mentions mixing wine with herbs as an antiseptic and a vehicle for delivering medicines. Physicians in Mesopotamia used wine to dissolve and administer drugs, and Hippocrates (c. 460–370 BCE) recommended it for treating wounds,
- [Crocodiles in medicine   ](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/crocodiles-in-medicine/) - In ancient times Egyptian doctors used crocodile dung as contraceptive or remedy for skin diseases and prescribed crocodile fat to treat burns and prevent baldness. In China traditional physicians recommended eating crocodile meat and organs for respiratory ailments and fevers, and African tribal healers prescribed crocodile teeth, bile, and fat. The interest in using crocodiles
- [Gardens: Living pharmacies](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/gardens-living-pharmacies/) - The connection between medicine and gardens runs deep. Gardens have long served as places of beauty and serenity and also as living pharmacies where healing plants were cultivated with care. This relationship between horticulture and healing represents one of humanity's oldest and most enduring partnerships. In ancient civilizations, medicinal gardens were often components of healthcare
- [Elephant's medical](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/elephants-medical/) - Elephants, the largest living land mammals, possess several features that have long interested scientists and biologists. Their size, longevity, unique anatomy, and disease resistance offer valuable insights for broader biomedical research. Their resistance to cancer is remarkable, given their massive size and long lifespan, up to seventy years, they would be expected to have a
- [Robert Braidwood’s “Did Man Once Live by Beer Alone?”](https://hekint.org/2025/05/27/robert-braidwoods-did-man-once-live-by-beer-alone/) - In his 1953 essay “Did Man Once Live by Beer Alone?”, archaeologist Robert J. Braidwood raised a provocative question that hinted at deeper anthropological and historical truths about the origins of agriculture. Though framed with a certain tongue-in-cheek humor, the piece explored a serious and fascinating idea: that the cultivation of cereal grains might have
- [The anti-vaccination movement](https://hekint.org/2025/05/27/the-anti-vaccination-movement/) - The anti-vaccination movement, a diverse coalition that opposes the use of vaccines, represents a serious public health challenge. Amplified by the internet and social media, it threatens society's wellbeing by contributing to the resurgence of infectious diseases and undermining trust in established science. Its arguments, often rooted in misinformation, personal anecdotes, and distrust of authority,
- [Famines throughout history](https://hekint.org/2025/05/28/famines-throughout-history/) - Since times immemorial there have been numerous famines in the world. Droughts, floods, and crop failures have claimed millions of lives, often the consequence of wars, injudicious policies, repressive measures, but frequently described as inevitable or attributed to supernatural causes. The earliest famines recorded in history occurred during the first dynasties of ancient Egypt,
- [Lead poisoning—not vanquished](https://hekint.org/2025/05/28/lead-poisoning-not-vanquished/) - Humans began to introduce harmful lead into their bodies thousands of years ago, causing symptoms that the Greek philosopher Nikander of Colophon recognized around 2000 BC. The lead entered the body through pipes, paints, gasoline, and countless other applications and was distributed by the bloodstream to the brain, kidneys, liver, and bones. Stored in bones and
- [The cow in culture and history](https://hekint.org/2025/05/29/the-cow-in-culture-and-history/) - Cows are domesticated bovine animals that have been used in human agriculture for thousands of years. As ruminants they have a four-chambered stomach system that allows them to digest grass and other plant materials that humans cannot process. There are hundreds of cattle breeds worldwide, ranging from dairy breeds like Holstein and Jersey to beef
- [The silence between us](https://hekint.org/2025/06/09/the-silence-between-us/) - Yara AbukhaledMemphis, Tennessee, United States It was just after 2:00 a.m. when the mother rushed into the emergency department, her son cradled in her arms. He was ten years old, barely conscious, his face streaked with soot and tears. His legs were blistered and raw, glistening under the fluorescent lights. She tried to explain what
- [That we are all bastards](https://hekint.org/2025/06/09/that-we-are-all-bastards/) - Frank González-CrussíChicago, Illinois, United States The indelicate and seemingly insulting phrase that I have chosen as a title for this piece comes from Shakespeare. The great bard, in Cymbeline (II, iv), makes Posthumus say: … We are all bastards.And that most venerable man, which IDid call my father, was I know not whereWhen I was
- [The Cardiff Giant: Archaeology’s biggest hoax](https://hekint.org/2025/06/05/the-cardiff-giant-archaeologys-biggest-hoax/) - Zachary SorensenChicago, Illinois, United States On the morning of October 16, 1869, two laborers, Gideon Emmons and Henry Nicols, began the back-breaking work of digging a new well at the farm of William “Stub” Newell in Cardiff, New York.1 After removing several feet of earth, the two struck something hard with their tools. Within a
- [Practical hydrotherapy](https://hekint.org/2020/01/06/practical-hydrotherapy/) - Water in the form of bathing and other techniques has been used since antiquity to relieve pain and promote healing. Also called water cure, it is now regarded as part of alternative medicine, often combined with massage, relaxation, and physiotherapy. It was particularly promoted in the early 1900s by Dr. Curran Pope, who claimed it
- [Book review: <i>Our Brains, Our Selves</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/06/02/book-review-our-brains-our-selves/) - Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, England The world of popular science publishing is replete with neurologists who have been fascinated by the workings of the brain gleaned from the study of neurological disorders in their patients. Famous recent writers of this genre include Oliver Sacks, whose books have provided the public with insights into aspects of
- [Medical monuments throughout history](https://hekint.org/2025/06/02/medical-monuments-throughout-history/) - Humanity's fight against disease finds its expression in monuments that serve as enduring historical markers. They document medical progress and recognize those who devoted their lives to significant advances. Throughout history, civilizations erected temples for sacred healing rituals. The ancient Greeks dedicated temples to Asclepius where patients spent nights in hope of receiving divine guidance
- [Pigeons and doves](https://hekint.org/2025/06/02/pigeons-and-doves/) - The deeper you get into pigeons, the more complicated they get. Are pigeons the same as doves? What are squab and what are quail? Which may you eat, which may you feed, and which may you shoot? It seems to depend on where you live. If pigeons spread disease, why are so many allowed in
- [María de las Mercedes, the Spanish Romantic queen](https://hekint.org/2024/12/23/maria-de-las-mercedes-the-spanish-romantic-queen/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Ya Mercedes está muerta,muerta está, que yo la ví,cuatro duques la llevabanpor las calles de Madrid. Mercedes is already dead,she's dead, I did saw her,four dukes were her carryingthrough the streets of Madrid.—Popular Spanish song María de la Mercedes de Orleans y Borbón was born in Madrid, Spain, on June 24, 1860.
- [Psychiatry and homosexuality in E.M. Forster’s <i>Maurice</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/05/29/psychiatry-and-homosexuality-in-e-m-forsters-maurice/) - Jennifer ParkerBristol, England Introduction “The man in my book is, roughly speaking, good, but Society nearly destroys him,” E.M. Forster wrote in 1915 when describing the eponymous character in his novel Maurice.1,2 Anti-homosexual sentiment saturated British society in the twentieth century, overseen by intertwined medical and legal institutions that both constructed and constricted homosexuality on
- [The gift of life—From whom?](https://hekint.org/2020/02/10/the-gift-of-life-from-whom/) - George PantalosLouisville, Kentucky, United States I always thought that donating blood was a good thing to do, but did not get around to it until an intense winter storm left several inches of snow and ice in central Ohio where I was in graduate school in January of 1978. Slick roads resulted in auto accidents
- [What’s inside us?: Socio-cultural themes in anatomical naming](https://hekint.org/2021/09/30/whats-inside-us-socio-cultural-themes-in-anatomical-naming/) - Frazer A. TessemaChicago, Illinois, United States Anatomical terms often read as Latin or Greek gibberish whose main purpose is to be obscure trivia in the first-year medical school ritual called anatomy class. But a surprising trend emerges through the English translations of these archaic names: many parts of the human body are named not for
- [<i>Hospital at Arles</i> - Van Gogh, 1889](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/hospital-at-arles-van-gogh-1889/) - George Dunea, Summer 2015, Art Flashes, Van Gogh, mental illness, Arles, Hektoen
- [Fra Bartolommeo](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/fra-bartolommeo/) - George Dunea, Art Flashes, Winter 2012, Florentine Renaissance, fruit, Baccio della Porta, Hektoen
- [Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman](https://hekint.org/2021/03/17/dr-charles-alexander-eastman/) - Tonse N. K. RajuGaithersburg, MD, United States On March 15, 2021, the United States Senate confirmed Rep. Deb Haaland (D-NM), a member of the Laguna Pueblo Tribal Nation, as Secretary of the Department of Interior. This historic action marks the beginning of an end to centuries of invisibility of Native Americans in high-profile government positions.
- [Lina Shtern and the blood brain barrier](https://hekint.org/2021/08/04/lina-shtern-and-the-blood-brain-barrier/) - Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada Future generations will remember our age for unbelievable electronic progress, but also for the bloody conflicts of World War II, characterized by dictatorial figures that darkened the lives of so many productive, innocent people. Among these was Dr. Lina Shtern, whose pioneer work permitted her to envision and name the blood-brain
- [On the day of her death](https://hekint.org/2017/01/23/on-the-day-of-her-death/) - Ted McMahon Poet's statement With regard to poetry and healing, I think that the discipline of writing poetry demands the cultivation of a certain kind of attention to story, of attention to detail. I strive to bring this kind of attention to my clinical encounters in medicine. I believe that for most of us who
- [Raynaud's phenomenon](https://hekint.org/2023/04/13/raynauds-phenomenon/) - JMS PearceHull, England In 1862, Maurice Raynaud (1834–81) of Paris provided one of the finest descriptive accounts in clinical medicine in his doctoral dissertation on episodic digital ischemia. Yet lasting recognition came only after his death. He described twenty-five patients, twenty of whom were female, and with astonishing accuracy deduced the pathophysiology: In its simplest form,
- [The surgeon's photograph of the Loch Ness monster](https://hekint.org/2022/08/10/the-surgeons-photograph-of-the-loch-ness-monster/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Whatever is the truth, there is no denying that Nessie will continue to intrigue the world for years to come.”– Johnathan Bright, Oxford Internet Institute Loch Ness, at thirty-seven kilometers long and 230 meters deep at its deepest point, is the second largest lake in Scotland.1 Stories about a creature of great
- [Michelangelo’s poetry](https://hekint.org/2025/05/29/michelangelos-poetry/) - JMS PearceHull, England The poetry of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) is often overlooked. In it we can discern that behind his sublime sculptures, painting, and architecture lurked a devout man disturbed by deep personal conflicts. Michelangelo, born in Caprese, considered himself a Florentine, although for many years he lived in Rome.3 In the Church of Santo
- [Edvard Munch: Medical portraits](https://hekint.org/2025/05/15/edvard-munch-medical-portraits/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States The name Edvard Munch usually recalls his masterful painting titled The Scream (fig. 1). This iconic image from 1893 depicts a moody landscape inhabited by a ghostlike, androgynous, wispy figure, facing if not confronting the viewer. Elongated hands frame the head, pressing emphatically on the ears of a hairless ovoid
- [Separating the inseparable: Seeing and practice makes it possible](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/separating-the-inseparable-seeing-and-practice-makes-it-possible/) - Alan Jay SchwartzPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Conjoined twins present a rare and challenging occurrence. With an incidence of 1 per 50,000–200,000 births,1 the successful separation of conjoined twins is a phenomenal medical-surgical challenge.2 Two reasons, among others, explain why such separation has become successful: a) detailed visualization of the pathologic anatomy and b) simulating and
- [Rural home visit 1973](https://hekint.org/2021/07/19/rural-home-visit-1973/) - Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States The road frozen and snowflakes fluttering, I travel to a distant farmhouse—the sick in bed on her side, hair in sweat-wet crescents and vomitus on the sheets, the husband wailing, “She’s dying, she’s dying,” and a dog and three toddlers lapping milk from the linoleum—and as I stoop to
- [The anatomy of Michelangelo (1475–1564)](https://hekint.org/2018/04/11/anatomy-michelangelo-1475-1564/) - JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Michelangelo Buonarroti was an exception to the rule that the qualities of many brilliant artists and composers are realized and extolled only after death. He was recognized by contemporaries as a genius, a “Hero of the High Renaissance,” the only artist of whom it was claimed in his lifetime that he
- [The striking parallels between the assassinations of James Garfield and William McKinley](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/the-striking-parallels-between-the-assassinations-of-james-garfield-and-william-mckinley/) - Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States For decades, historians have commented on the coincidences of the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations. They both suffered mortal head wounds and were shot on a Friday. It is speculated that conspiracies were involved in both assassinations. Both men were elected in a year ending in 60 and were succeeded
- [Ivan Čobal’s “Blue Wall” at the Maribor University Clinical Centre in Slovenia](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/ivan-cobals-blue-wall-at-the-maribor-university-clinical-centre-in-slovenia/) - Mojca RamšakLjubljana, Slovenia Patients, physicians, and staff at Maribor University Clinical Centre pass an extraordinary piece of artwork each day: a blue wall made of elongated ceramic tiles with welded iron metal reliefs. The “Blue Wall,” officially titled Times Were Better Once (Nekoč so bili boljši časi), is a 3.4 x 16-meter wall featuring two-dimensional
- [Dingler's Panama tragedy](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/dinglers-panama-tragedy/) - Enrique Chaves-CarballoKansas City, Kansas, United States According to David McCullough, author of best-seller The Path Between the Seas, Jules Isidore Dingler “was not impressive-looking…he was short and bald…had small round shoulders, a soft, round face, soft blue eyes, and a drooping, mahogany-colored mustache….The appearance suggested neither initiative nor resolution and the appearance [sic] was deceiving.”1
- [Asymmetrical masks of indigenous Alaskan peoples: Do they represent facial paralysis or not?](https://hekint.org/2025/05/22/asymmetrical-masks-of-indigenous-alaskan-peoples-do-they-represent-facial-paralysis-or-not/) - Peter De SmetNijmegen, Netherlands Asymmetrical masks of indigenous Alaskan peoples have been interpreted time and again as representations of facial paralysis in the biomedical literature.1-8 Among the arguments in favor of this view is that otitis media once was a health concern in Alaska and could have been an important cause of facial paralysis there.3
- [David Paton, the flying eye surgeon](https://hekint.org/2025/05/15/david-paton-the-flying-eye-surgeon/) - Dr. David Paton, who died April 3, 2025 at age 93, is remembered for his efforts to make modern eye care and technology available worldwide. Born in Baltimore on August 16, 1930, he spent much of his childhood in New York City, where his father was a prominent ophthalmologist and founder of the world's first
- [Thomas De Quincey and the sisters of sorrow](https://hekint.org/2025/04/21/thomas-de-quincey-and-the-sisters-of-sorrow/) - Born in Manchester in 1785, De Quincey was a sensitive child and had an unhappy childhood. His two sisters had died very young, and he was only seven years old when his father was also brought home to die. Left in the guardianship of his mother and four friends of the family, he was sent
- [On superficial, "epidermal" books](https://hekint.org/2025/05/05/on-superficial-epidermal-books/) - Frank González-CrussíChicago, Illinois, United States Camille Flammarion (1842–1925) was a French astronomer who acquired immense popularity as a writer (Fig. 1). Today, his surname brings to mind a major French publishing house (founded by his brother Ernest), but in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth, the word “Flammarion” evoked Camille’s extraordinary celebrity
- [Sir James Paget](https://hekint.org/2025/05/05/sir-james-paget-2/) - JMS PearceHull, England James Paget (1814–1899) is remembered for his original accounts of “osteitis deformans,” universally known as Paget’s disease of bone,1 and for his original description of Paget’s disease of the nipple, a sign of intraductal carcinoma.2 He made extensive contributions to pathology3 and to surgery.4 As a student at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, he was
- [Eric Ambler’s psychopath](https://hekint.org/2025/05/01/eric-amblers-psychopath/) - Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Years before Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and Alistair MacLean were popular, there was another spy novelist they all admired. His name was Eric Ambler and, in the late 1930s, just as Europe’s core temperature was heating up for war, Hodder and Stoughton published half a dozen of his earliest thrillers. His
- [Leaving medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/05/01/leaving-medicine/) - Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States It is February in Boston, and the snow is coming down hard. From his office window, Tom shakes his head and watches a car spin its wheels in the middle of the road. Next week, he will be in southern California for a medical meeting. “I’m so done with this,”
- [Rooted in exile, growing through medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/05/01/rooted-in-exile-growing-through-medicine/) - Tenzin TamdinConnecticut, United States I was born in a Tibetan refugee settlement in India. My parents were farmers who worked a small piece of land with a few cows. I remember my mother borrowing rice from neighbors when we had none. I remember cleaning cow dung before sunrise, my school uniform folded beside me. Out
- [Wasps, bees, and honey](https://hekint.org/2025/05/01/wasps-bees-and-honey/) - Bees, wasps, and honey play a potentially important role in the medical world. Only bees make honey, but both bees and wasps are of interest because their bites, though usually trivial, can cause allergic reactions ranging from mild swelling and itching to life-threatening anaphylaxis. These biting insects belong to the order Hymenoptera and need to
- [C. Louis Leipoldt: The polymath physician and literary giant](https://hekint.org/2021/07/08/c-louis-leipoldt-the-polymath-physician-and-literary-giant/) - Stephen FinnSouth Africa Looking out across a landscape of dramatic mountains and purple and orange sunsets is a small cave. Listen carefully in this desolate place in a western corner of South Africa, and you will hear in the distance the sound of a banjo being plucked. Interred in this cave at his request are
- [Obesity and art](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/obesity-and-art/) - Bojana Cokic, Winter 2016, Art Flashes, Venus of Willendorf, Obesity, Abu Ali al-Husayn, Hektoen
- [Battling poverty, injustice, ignorance and fear, and despair](https://hekint.org/2021/01/22/battling-poverty-injustice-ignorance-and-fear-and-despair/) - Tonse N. K. RajuGaithersburg, Maryland, United States At the entrance hall of the Library of the Health Sciences of the University of Illinois Medical Campus in Chicago, one can see an ensemble of surgical and anesthetic equipment such as knives, forceps, speculum, towel clips, hemostats, kidney trays, IV poles, crutches, x-ray films, anesthetic balloon bags,
- [William Beaumont and Alexis St. Martin](https://hekint.org/2020/02/06/william-beaumont-and-alexis-st-martin/) - The picturesque island of Mackinac lies three miles off the coast of Michigan, at the junction of Lakes Huron and Michigan. It is a favorite resort where tourists can admire old French-style buildings with tall slated roofs, ride in open carriages pulled by horses that know when to turn or stop, and stay at the
- [The twelve children of Isabel II](https://hekint.org/2025/04/24/the-twelve-children-of-isabel-ii/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Isabel II de Borbón, Queen of Spain from 1833 to 1868, was born in 1830 in Madrid. She was a daughter of Ferdinand VII and succeeded him to the throne in 1833 shortly after her birth. Each European power presented a candidate for consort of the Spanish queen, and the only one
- [From “The Sad Shepherd” by W.B. Yeats](https://hekint.org/2025/04/24/from-the-sad-shepherd-by-w-b-yeats/) - Nuka GbafahDublin, Ireland In his poem, Yeats portrays the load of depression weighing upon a desolate shepherd and his bid to find compassion and comfort in the inanimate world. We are not being told whether he is dispirited because of the isolation of his vocation, or has he chosen his profession to cater to a
- [The beginnings of cell theory: Schleiden, Schwann, and Virchow](https://hekint.org/2022/07/15/the-beginnings-of-cell-theory-schleiden-schwann-and-virchow/) - JMS PearceHull, England Every schoolchild is taught in biology about cells and their elemental importance. Students of biological and medical sciences also learn about the Schwann cell sheath that invests nerve fibers. What is less well known is how these two are related. Schwann, a physician by training, and Schleiden, a botanist from Hamburg, were
- [Cultural taboos, Marvin Harris, and <i>The Abominable Pig</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/04/24/cultural-taboos-marvin-harris-and-the-abominable-pig/) - Zachary SorensenChicago, Illinois, United States Many ancient cultural traditions persist through religious practice to this day. They are particularly evident in the taboos surrounding food. In The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig, anthropologist Marvin Harris explores the food taboos of the ancient world, particularly focusing on the prohibition of pork in Judaism and Islam.
- [The death of Alexander the Great](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-death-of-alexander-the-great/) - George DuneaChicago, IL Possibly the greatest warrior of all times, Alexander of Macedon died aged 32 at Babylon. Within 12 years he had overthrown an empire that had lasted two centuries, conquered the greater part of the Eastern world, became worshiped as a god, and forever changed the course of history.1 Fair and light skinned,
- [The mythology of the Sun Fountain in Nice, France](https://hekint.org/2025/04/17/the-mythology-of-the-sun-fountain-in-nice-france/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England In Place Masséna, a historic square named after Napoleon’s greatest general, near the old town area of Nice, France, there is a grand fountain in the Baroque style named the Fontaine du Soleil, or the “Sun Fountain.” In the center of the fountain stands a marble sculpture depicting the god Apollo
- [Picasso’s Blue Period and depression](https://hekint.org/2024/04/11/picassos-blue-period-and-depression/) - Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period was a four-year period from 1900 to 1904 in which the artist used monochromatic art to express his grief...
- [Antecedents of Crohn’s disease](https://hekint.org/2025/04/21/antecedents-of-crohns-disease/) - JMS PearceHull, England Crohn’s disease was described on several occasions before Crohn’s seminal publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association1 with his two colleagues in 1932. Many reports of a Crohn's-like condition have claimed priority. Giovanni Battista Morgagni (1682–1771) of Padua, the pioneer of pathological anatomy, in De sedibus, et causis morborum per
- [Septimus Severus: <i>“Omnia fuit, nihil expedit”</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/04/17/septimus-severus-omnia-fuit-nihil-expedit/) - “I have been all things, and all was of little value.”1 Septimius Severus was Roman emperor from 193 to 211 CE and is remembered for his reforms, innovations, military campaigns, and severity.1 Born in present-day Libya, he came to the throne after several emperors who ruled briefly after the death of Nero. As emperor, he
- [Worth the wait](https://hekint.org/2025/04/17/worth-the-wait/) - Jennifer WalkerCarbondale, Illinois, United States Being a mom was something I knew I wanted from an early age, but no one thinks when you decide to start a family, that it might take years to happen. My husband and I have been together since high school. We finished college and got married in our early
- [Ancient medicine on the Nile](https://hekint.org/2025/04/14/ancient-medicine-on-the-nile/) - Egyptian medicine was already highly advanced by 5000 BCE, and its physicians were highly esteemed. During the Neolithic or last phase of the Stone Age, a flourishing civilization had developed on the fertile banks of the Nile, and around 3100 BCE, King Narmer (or Menes) united what had become the kingdoms of Upper and Lower
- [Louis Leakey: Pioneering the study of human evolution in Africa](https://hekint.org/2025/04/14/louis-leakey-pioneering-the-study-of-human-evolution-in-africa/) - Zachary SorensenChicago, Illinois, United States Louis Seymour Bazet Leakey was a paleoanthropologist and archaeologist renowned for his fieldwork in East Africa. His career spanned several decades, and he made important contributions to our understanding of human origins. His research dramatically shaped the way the world views the history of humanity. Born in Kenya to British
- [The memoirs of Catherine the Great: Forecasting death](https://hekint.org/2025/04/10/the-memoirs-of-catherine-the-great-forecasting-death/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Courageous and voracious in her quest for power, Empress Catherine the Great (1729–1796) dominated the world stage of politics in the second half of the eighteenth century. The daughter of a Lutheran German prince, she traded her homeland, changed her religion, and even her language, sedulously studying Russian and impressing
- [Meshamorphosis](https://hekint.org/2025/04/10/meshamorphosis/) - Leo GordonLos Angeles, California, United States As Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the Metropolitan Medical Center, awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a piece of synthetic mesh. Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the famed Metropolitan Medical Center, awoke last Tuesday morning, lying flat
- [Olives now and then](https://hekint.org/2025/04/10/olives-now-and-then/) - Olives in their natural state are exceedingly bitter. I made that discovery by the roadside between Granada and Madrid when I reached up and plucked an olive from a tree. I later learned that olives are made edible by leaching out a bitter phenolic compound called oleuropein. This is done by pickling or curing techniques
- [Dominique-Vivant Denon, first director of the Louvre](https://hekint.org/2025/04/10/dominique-vivant-denon-first-director-of-the-louvre/) - Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a polymath whose career spanned art, archaeology, diplomacy, and museum curation. Born into minor nobility on January 4, 1747, in Givry, Burgundy, he became one of the most influential cultural figures of his time. After studying law in Paris, Denon switched to a diplomatic career, serving under Louis XV and Louis
- [A memorable patient](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/a-memorable-patient/) - Biji Kurien, Spring 2016, Personal Narratives, alopecia, hamster, Hektoen
- [Tinkering towards technology: Examples from the evolution of renal medicine in the UK](https://hekint.org/2025/04/07/tinkering-towards-technology-examples-from-the-evolution-of-renal-medicine-in-the-uk/) - Eric WillNicholas MarksUnited Kingdom “Tinkering” is a mindset that responds to calls for improvement or repair through piecemeal modification. It may involve novelty or rediscovery, and ranges from mechanics to imaging, the concrete to the abstract. A writer tinkers with a text, the artist with a canvas, the mechanic with an engine. It is generally
- [Death playing a fiddle](https://hekint.org/2025/04/07/death-playing-a-fiddle/) - Rosemaria RoyDublin, Ireland Doctors stand at the crossroads as both healers and witnesses in the dance between life and death, easing suffering while still holding space for the inevitable. As frequent as one may face it, the concept of death is still not yet fully understood. This constant confrontation with mortality is often left drawing
- [Trauma stewardship](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/trauma-stewardship/) - psychiatry psychology, Trauma Stewardship, Spring 2012, Laura van Dernoont Lipsky, Connie Burk, Hektoen
- [A journal of rehabilitation](https://hekint.org/2017/01/23/a-journal-of-rehabilitation/) - Eliette Markhbein, Fall 2010, Poetry, Hektoen, I So Miss Us, Braced Up, Eternal Rhythms
- [In praise of swimming: From Benjamin Franklin to Oliver Sacks](https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/in-praise-of-swimming-from-benjamin-franklin-to-oliver-sacks/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was not a physician, but many thought he was so-trained and referred to him as “Doctor” Franklin. After accepting an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in 1759, awarded for his experiments in electricity, people began referring to him as “Doctor,” a title he
- [Leaving nothing to the imagination: Casualties Union and post-war first aid training](https://hekint.org/2019/05/15/leaving-nothing-to-the-imagination-casualties-union-and-post-war-first-aid-training/) - Jessica DouthwaiteLondon, UK In 1940, a new method for training the emergency services in casualty rescue emerged from the demands of the Second World War.1 Until then, rescue training was perfunctory —neither concerned with recreating representative conditions for trainees, nor taking account of the quality of victims’ experiences. Due to the exigencies of the war,
- [PEACH: Providing end of life care for the homeless](https://hekint.org/2017/04/27/peach-providing-end-of-life-care-for-the-homeless/) - Lea MendesLisbon, Portugal Homeless people make up a Fourth World population in industrialized as well as developing countries. Homelessness creates a higher risk for disease and premature death. An innovative Canadian program provides care for those who are homeless at the end of life, especially for those who might otherwise die alone. PEACH (Palliative Education
- [Faustina Maratti’s poem and altarpiece on losing her infant son](https://hekint.org/2025/04/03/faustina-marattis-poem-and-altarpiece-on-losing-her-infant-son/) - Stephen MartinThailand A most unusual altarpiece panel of the Virgin with the infants Christ and John the Baptist came to light recently. (Fig 1) The heavily-sawn pitch pine had an inscription on the back which was difficult to read. Studying the ink writing under violet light, however, it was not hard to make out: Pinxit
- [Plutarch and medical practice (c. 46–120 CE)](https://hekint.org/2025/03/31/plutarch-and-medical-practice-c-46-120-ce/) - Plutarch does not immediately come to mind when one considers the history of medicine. Known primarily as an historian, he was born in Chaeronea when Greece was already part of the Roman Empire. Widely influential, he was an important biographer, philosopher, and teacher, with a deep interest in ethics, morality, and how one should conduct
- [Recognizing nonverbal communication through art](https://hekint.org/2025/04/03/recognizing-nonverbal-communication-through-art/) - Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a recent excursion to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a themed tour, medical students gathered to look at paintings of suffering and healing. For this medical humanities elective, led by faculty members, each small group viewed these images, using a discussion guide to elicit their responses. Our tour
- [John Abernethy: A controversial surgeon](https://hekint.org/2025/04/03/john-abernethy-a-controversial-surgeon/) - JMS PearceHull, England John Abernethy (1764–1831) was renowned more for his brilliant teaching than for his surgical skills, but as an eccentric and gifted communicator, he attracted many students and admirers.1 A stalwart of medical education, he was a founder of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital medical school. Yet, at times he was fractious, peevish, and prone
- [Doctor, physician, leech, and surgeon: A history of names for medical practitioners](https://hekint.org/2025/03/24/doctor-physician-leech-and-surgeon-a-history-of-names-for-medical-practitioners/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States Four English words have been used for centuries to refer to medical practitioners: “doctor,” “physician,” “leech,” and “surgeon.” Each of these has unique origins. “Doctor” comes from “docere” in Latin meaning “to teach”1; thus, calling someone a “doctor” is etymologically calling them “teacher.” “Physician” comes from “physis” in Greek, meaning
- [Psychoactive substances and mermaid sightings at sea](https://hekint.org/2025/03/31/psychoactive-substances-and-mermaid-sightings-at-sea/) - Martine MussiesMaastricht, Netherlands Since the earliest long-term sea voyages, from the Age of Exploration to the eighteenth century, sailors have been known to report seeing mermaids—enigmatic creatures with human-like upper bodies and fish-like tails. These accounts have long been a subject of fascination and speculation. Could these sightings have been influenced by the use of
- [Roots and routes](https://hekint.org/2025/03/27/roots-and-routes/) - Prasad IyerSingapore Dr. Arjun Mehta stood at the balcony of his Mumbai apartment, gazing out at the chaotic tapestry of the city he once called home. The cacophony of honking horns, aroma of street food, and vibrant saris in the bustling streets below stirred a complex mix of emotions within him. After two decades in
- [Paleopharmaceuticals from fossil amber](https://hekint.org/2025/03/24/paleopharmaceuticals-from-fossil-amber/) - José de la FuenteCiudad Real, Spain Amber is fossilized plant resin commonly used for jewelry, decoration, and in the study of fossil inclusions.1,2 The largest sources of amber are found in Myanmar (formerly Burma; Burmite, Cretaceous, ca. 99 million years ago [mya]) and the area around the Baltic Sea (Eocene, ca. 34–56 mya). Fossil amber
- [Alain G. Cribier, MD, aortic stenosis, and TAVI](https://hekint.org/2025/03/20/alain-g-cribier-md-aortic-stenosis-and-tavi/) - Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, IN In 2024, the world of interventional cardiology lost one of its greatest innovators: Alain Cribier, MD (1945–2024). Called the father of “structural heart disease” treatment and described as “larger than life, he was a Renaissance man, fluent in English and French, knowledgeable in philosophy and art, but keen to be a physician
- [The lives and artistry of the Pissarro dynasty](https://hekint.org/2025/03/20/the-lives-and-artistry-of-the-pissarro-dynasty/) - George WeiszSydney, Australia Reviewing the lives of famous people is mostly rewarding and only disappointing when it changes our views of admired idols. Apart from his painting, the so-called “dean” of the Impressionist art movement is of interest for several other reasons. What more can we say about Camille Pissarro than the books, stories, lectures,
- [Don’t stop me now: The positive effects of music in post-stroke rehabilitation](https://hekint.org/2025/03/20/dont-stop-me-now-the-positive-effects-of-music-in-post-stroke-rehabilitation/) - Silvia MasciTerni, Italy Stroke is a clinical syndrome characterized by sudden onset of neurological deficit that persists for more than 24 hours or leads to death. Based on etiology, a distinction is made between ischemic stroke (65–90%) and hemorrhagic stroke (intracerebral hemorrhages 10–25%, subarachnoid hemorrhages 0.5–5%).1,2 According to 2019 World Stroke Organization (WSO) statistics, stroke
- [William Heberden](https://hekint.org/2025/03/17/william-heberden/) - JMS PearceHull, England Virtuous and faithful HEBERDEN, whose skillAttempts no task it cannot well fulfil,Gives Melancholy up to nature's care,And sends the patient into purer air.—William Cowper in his poem “Retirement” It is difficult to avoid eulogies of the outstanding humane compassion and clinical accomplishments, which are the hallmarks of William Heberden the elder (1710–1801).
- [Go to work on an egg](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/go-to-work-on-an-egg/) - Liam Farrell, Winter 2013, Personal Narratives, egg, George Bernard Shaw, Hektoen
- [The first clinical trial and controlled biological experiments](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-first-clinical-trial-and-controlled-biological-experiments/) - Wladimir Alonso, Steven Zhou, Cynthia Schuck-Paim, Winter 2016, Science, Hektoen
- [The aging revolutionary](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-aging-revolutionary/) - Teresa Johnson, Hektoen, Science, Spring 2016, Paul Talalay
- [Dream interpretation and insomnia across cultures and history](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/dream-interpretation-and-insomnia-across-cultures-and-history/) - Hektoen, Elizabeth Scott, Fall 2009, Science, Sakkara, Science
- [Into the jungle](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/into-the-jungle/) - Benjamin Li, Fall 2014, Zen, Fiction, Hektoen,
- [Neuroscientist refugees from Nazi Germany find haven in Illinois](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/neuroscientist-refugees-from-nazi-germany-find-haven-in-illinois/) - Lawrence Zeidman, Summer 2014, Hektoen, War & Veterans, Walter Kirshbaum, Hermann Josephy, Eric Haase
- [Boots on the ground](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/boots-on-the-ground/) - Dalyl Walker, Hektoen, War & Veterans, Summer 2016, Afghanistan, Katherine Keleher
- [“Filth so foul and stench so offensive as not to be imagined”](https://hekint.org/2023/12/07/filth-so-foul-and-stench-so-offensive-as-not-to-be-imagined/) - Shipboard life on the Golden Age of Sail's long-haul oceanic voyages was anything but romantic.
- [Kadambini Bose Ganguly—India’s first female physician](https://hekint.org/2024/05/16/kadambini-bose-ganguly-indias-first-female-physician/) - In her time, Kadambini Ganguly was a remarkable trailblazer and the first Indian female doctor to practice Western medicine in India.
- [Sushruta, the father of rhinoplasty](https://hekint.org/2024/07/22/sushruta-the-father-of-rhinoplasty/) - Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United States From around 1000–800 BC, a golden age of medicine dawned in ancient India, where ayurveda, the “science of life,” flourished.1 At the heart of this revolution was the legendary physician Sushruta, whose writings in the famous Samhita describe surgeries from cataract removal to treatment of bladder stones, diseases including diabetes
- [René Descartes found that Sweden was hazardous to his health](https://hekint.org/2024/03/28/rene-descartes-found-that-sweden-was-hazardous-to-his-health/) - If only we had a lock of Descartes’ hair to test for arsenic.
- [JB Murphy: Chicago’s great but controversial surgeon](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/jb-murphy-chicagos-great-but-controversial-surgeon/) - Hektoen, Patrick Guinan, George Dunea, John Benjamin Murphy, Summer 2016, Surgery
- [The anonymous Olmec artisan and Velázquez](https://hekint.org/2017/01/25/the-anonymous-olmec-artisan-and-velazquez/) - Alejandro Ortiz Bulle Goyri, Carlos Valverde-R, Art Essays, Past Issues, Summer 2015, hypothyroidism, Ramon Gaya, Hektoen
- [The impact of technology on healthcare](https://hekint.org/2018/08/15/the-impact-of-technology-on-healthcare/) - New medical technology provides a glimpse into a fascinating new world that could become a reality in our lifetime.
- [Adrianus Spigelius, the last great Paduan anatomist](https://hekint.org/2019/07/29/adrianus-spigelius-the-last-great-paduan-anatomist/) - In his time the Flemish physician Adrianne van den Spiegel (often referred to by the latinized name of Adrianus Spigelius) was the most renowned practicing clinician in the city of Padua. An accomplished anatomist, he was left with only meager eponymous pickings: the caudate (Spigelian) lobe of the liver and some more obscure structures around
- [Avant garde research on a blood substitute at the Hektoen Institute of Medical Research](https://hekint.org/2019/12/16/avant-garde-research-on-a-blood-substitute-at-the-hektoen-institute-of-medical-research/) - Jayant Radhakrishnan Darien, Illinois, United States From Left to Right: Gerald S Moss MD, Richard Brinkman MD, Lakshman Sehgal PhD, Robert Forest DVM. June 1975, photograph of the team with the first baboon resuscitated with stroma free hemoglobin after being bled down to a hemoglobin concentration of zero. Photo taken by the author. The
- [Bloodlust: The embodiment of the uncanny in "The Vampyre”](https://hekint.org/2020/02/04/bloodlust-the-embodiment-of-the-uncanny-in-the-vampyre/) - Emily ClineMontréal, QC, Canada Upon her neck and breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein:—to this the men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, “A Vampyre! a Vampyre!” — The Vampyre, John William Polidori With this image Polidori introduces the conventions of the modern vampire story.
- [The pineal: Seat of the soul](https://hekint.org/2022/04/20/the-pineal-seat-of-the-soul/) - JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom The pineal for millennia had been a structure of mystery. In Ancient Egyptian culture, The Eye of Horus was a sign of prosperity and protection, often referred to as the third eye. In Ayurvedic physiology it corresponds to the sixth chakra—Ajna, located in the middle of the forehead, representing intelligence,
- [Spinach: The great myth](https://hekint.org/2022/07/18/spinach-the-great-myth/) - Spinach’s major claim to fame is that it contains a lot of iron. But already by 1981, T.J. Hamblin pointed out that this was based on erroneous scientific data.
- [Studying mummies and eggs: The delights of paleopathology](https://hekint.org/2023/02/08/studying-mummies-and-eggs-the-delights-of-paleopathology/) - Paleopathology is the study of disease by using mummified and skeletal remains, documents, early books, paintings, sculptures, and coprolites. Earlier investigators such as Esper and Cuvier focused on non-human specimens, but later ones expanded their interests to humans. They studied the ancient Egyptians and found evidence of osteoarthritis, tuberculosis, leprosy, and smallpox, as well as
- [Willebrand disease discovered in a girl from the Aland archipelago](https://hekint.org/2024/06/06/willebrand-disease-discovered-in-a-girl-from-the-aland-archipelago/) - In 1924 the Finnish physician Erik von Willebrand was consulted about the case of a five-year- old girl from the self-governing autonomous Swedish-speaking region of the Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea. Born on February 1, 1870, in Vasa, Finland, von Willebrand had graduated in 1896 from the faculty of medicine of the University of
- [The diverticulum of Meckel](https://hekint.org/2024/10/17/the-diverticulum-of-meckel/) - Johann Friedrich Meckel the Younger, a German anatomist, identified and described Meckel's diverticulum in 1809, building on earlier observations by Fabricius Hildanus in the sixteenth century. The diverticulum is the most common congenital abnormality of the gastrointestinal tract, found in about 2% of the population. It is a pouch or bulge in the small intestine
- [Book review: <i>Scars and Stains: Lessons from Intensive Care</i>](https://hekint.org/2024/11/07/book-review-scars-and-stains-lessons-from-intensive-care/) - Scars and Stains is suffused with humanity and compassion, which is often forgotten or overlooked in stressful and high-tech medical situations.
- [Paul Farmer, MD (1959–2022)](https://hekint.org/2024/11/21/paul-farmer-md-1959-2022/) - Paul Edward Farmer was an American medical pioneer anthropologist, academician, and physician. He co-founded and was chief strategist of Partners in Health (PIH), an international nonprofit organization that since 1987 has provided health care services, undertaken research, and advocacy on behalf of the poor and sick. Dr. Farmer grew up in Alabama during much of
- [Tattoo stories](https://hekint.org/2025/03/13/tattoo-stories/) - Alan BlumTuscaloosa, Alabama, United States A century before reality TV, there were circus sideshows, and one of the star attractions was the tattooed lady. Betty Broadbent was the most famous. The 1939 song “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen and performed by Groucho Marx in At the Circus, was a
- [Book review: <i>Frames of Minds: A History of Neuropsychiatry on Screen</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/03/13/book-review-frames-of-minds-a-history-of-neuropsychiatry-on-screen/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England In this fascinating book, author Eelco Wijdicks traces the history of psychiatry and neuropsychiatry in cinema. From the beginnings of commercial film in Paris in 1895, directors and screenwriters have told medical stories, both as entertainment and as a medium for understanding various aspects of the human condition. Frames of Minds
- [The truth about the Mad Hatter](https://hekint.org/2025/03/13/the-truth-about-the-mad-hatter/) - Stephen McWilliamsDublin, Ireland Few works of fiction are as original as Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Replete with singular characters such as the White Rabbit, the King and Queen of Hearts, the March Hare, the somnolent Dormouse, and the infamous grinning Cheshire Cat, the novel also boasts one of the true icons of
- [Morphine in the life and works of Catalan painter Santiago Rusiñol (1861–1931)](https://hekint.org/2025/03/13/morphine-in-the-life-and-works-of-catalan-painter-santiago-rusinol-1861-1931/) - Vicent RodillaValencia, Spain Morphine was discovered by the German pharmacist Friedrich Wilhelm Sertürner, who in 1804 isolated it from opium and named it “morphium” after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. He noted that high doses could lead to psychiatric effects and that the pain relief provided by this compound was ten times more potent
- [Women in medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/03/10/women-in-medicine/) - Women have long faced discrimination, prejudice, and exclusion from formal medical training, despite having served as healers and midwives since antiquity. In ancient Egypt, Merit Ptah was recognized as the first known woman physician in about 2700 BCE. In Greece, owing to societal restrictions, women like Agnodice practiced medicine clandestinely, eventually leading to legal reforms
- [Headlessness and sensibility](https://hekint.org/2025/03/10/headlessness-and-sensibility/) - Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States April 15, 2019, was an ill-starred day. Parisians watched with horror as huge flames broke through the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral in a conflagration that threatened to reduce that precious jewel of gothic architecture to a heap of smoking rubble. A terrifying spectacle, indeed! The famed gargoyles must have
- [Diana Beck, neurosurgery pioneer](https://hekint.org/2025/03/10/diana-beck-neurosurgery-pioneer/) - Born in Chester, England, in 1902, Diana Beck attended the University of Oxford and studied medicine at the School of Medicine for Women (later renamed the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine). She graduated in 1925, and, after working as a surgical registrar, took her FRCS London and Edinburgh. Her exceptional surgical skills led her
- [Lucius Cornelius Sulla in health and disease (138–78 BCE)](https://hekint.org/2025/03/06/lucius-cornelius-sulla-in-health-and-disease-138-78-bc/) - The transition from democracy to dictatorship and tyranny is never pleasant to behold. Whatever its causes, whatever defects it sets out to remedy, it more often than not leads to blood being spilt and tears being shed. This is exemplified by the story of Cornelius Sulla, the first Roman general to seize power through force
- [Paul-Emile Destouches: Can love triumph over disease?](https://hekint.org/2020/01/06/paul-emile-destouches-can-love-triumph-over-disease/) - In this painting by Parisian artist Paul-Emile Destouches (1794–1874), a young woman visits a young man who is ill and lies in bed surrounded by his relatives. The woman hopes that her visit will cure him, and indeed the young man’s face, though pale, has brightened. But many of the figures present are already wearing
- [Leonardo and the reinvention of anatomy](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/leonardo-and-the-reinvention-of-anatomy/) - Salvatore MangionePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USA When Vesalius started his life journey five hundred years ago, Leonardo Da Vinci’s own journey into the human body was symbolically coming to an end. Denounced by a German collaborator for necromancy, he would eventually be barred by the Church from even entering the Ospedale di Santo Spirito under accusations of
- [Surgeon’s hands in Vesalius’s portraits and Rembrandt's <i>The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp</i>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/19/surgeons-hands-in-vesaliuss-portraits-and-rembrandts-the-anatomy-lesson-of-dr-tulp/) - Adéla JaníčkováPrague, Czech Republic “To extol the human hand as a monument to God's wisdom, an instrument that permits humans to create civilization” This statement by Dolores Mitchell1 describes the human hand as both a monument to divinity and an instrument for great accomplishments. In the medical environment of surgery and anatomical studies, physiological illustrations of
- [The Cumberbatch story](https://hekint.org/2025/03/06/the-cumberbatch-story/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Benedict Cumberbatch is a well-known English actor whose name appears often in the media as Dr. Stephen Strange (an arrogant and self-centered neurosurgeon) or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with Dr. Watson. Recently, we heard that the Barbados National Task Force on Reparations was seeking reparations from wealthy British persons for their
- [Harvard medical school and the body snatchers](https://hekint.org/2019/04/12/harvard-medical-school-and-the-body-snatchers/) - Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, USA Their silhouettes surely would have been seen against the backdrop of a moonlit night in 1796 as they entered the North Burying Ground in Boston. Their hearts were likely filled with a blend of trepidation and anticipation. Their leader was John Collins Warren, the son of John Warren, one of
- [John Hunter, Harvey Cushing, and acromegaly](https://hekint.org/2020/12/21/john-hunter-harvey-cushing-and-acromegaly/) - Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Introduction John Hunter and Harvey Cushing were two of the most preeminent surgeons of their eras. John Hunter is considered to be “The Father of British Surgery” and Harvey Cushing the “Father of American Neurosurgery.” They both became interested in acromegaly and in the process went to extreme lengths
- [The face of a very trivial death](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/the-face-of-a-very-trivial-death/) - Frank Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States Of all the objects that our eyes can see, none engrosses so large a share of our thoughts and emotions as that little patch of bodily surface—so small that an extended hand may completely cover it—which we call “the face.” For here lies embodied and supremely condensed the entire strength
- [Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694)](https://hekint.org/2017/11/15/marcello-malpighi-1628-1694/) - Marcello Malpighi was fortunate to live at a time when microscopes of sufficient power became available for scientific studies, culminating centuries of attempts to use the optic properties of glass to magnify the image of objects. Such efforts go back at least to the Romans, who for this purpose ground glass into the shape of
- [Moses Maimonides—physician and philosopher](https://hekint.org/2019/12/19/moses-maimonides-physician-and-philosopher/) - The great Hebrew scholar and physician Moses Maimonides was born in Cordoba, Spain, ca.1135. Pupil of the famous Ibn Rushd (Averroes), he became like his teacher a polymath, writing about ethics, metaphysics, religious law, and even astronomy. Much of his medical knowledge was acquired in Fez, Morocco, where he had to flee with his family
- [Modern day obstinacy: the persistence of pangalintaw](https://hekint.org/2021/10/21/modern-day-obstinacy-the-persistence-of-pangalintaw/) - Halima AbdulmaguidNorth Cotabato, Philippines In the first week of June, my mother was rushed to the hospital because her cough was getting worse and her shoulder pain no longer bearable. On her x-ray film we saw that half of her lungs were not visible; there was fluid inside causing the obscurity, and there was also
- ["How the Poor Die" by George Orwell, 1946](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/how-the-poor-die-by-george-orwell-1946/) - George Dunea, Winter 2012, George Orwell, Hektoen, Literary Vignettes
- [Disease mapping: Tracing the urban epidemic](https://hekint.org/2018/03/08/disease-mapping-tracing-urban-epidemic/) - Astrid PrimadhaniJakarta, Indonesia In August 1854 a deadly cholera outbreak struck the Soho neighborhood of London.1 Within thirty-six hours, rapid death ensued as the dense and unsanitary condition of the working-class neighborhood became a haven for the spread of the bacteria. In two weeks, over seven hundred people, 10% of the neighborhood, died.2 Elsewhere around
- [Nabokov's first masterpiece](https://hekint.org/2017/01/31/nabokovs-first-masterpiece/) - Nicholas Kang, Vladimir Nabokov, Hektoen, Summer 2014, Literary Vignettes
- [Franklin Delano Roosevelt's last illness](https://hekint.org/2017/01/31/franklin-delano-roosevelts-last-illness/) - Armando Susmano, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Spring 2012, Winston Churchill, Yalta Summit, History Essays, Hektoen
- [Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin OM, FRS (1910-1994)](https://hekint.org/2020/11/04/dorothy-crowfoot-hodgkin-om-frs-1910-1994/) - JMS PearceHull, England Dorothy Hodgkin (Fig 1), though not by religion, had close Quaker affinities through her marriage and through her spirited pacifism. She possessed a unique mixture of scientific skills that allowed her to extend the use of X-rays to reveal the structures of compounds, a technical venture far more complex than anything attempted
- [Thomas Henry Huxley](https://hekint.org/2020/09/18/thomas-henry-huxley/) - JMS PearceEast Yorks, England “In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration . . . In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”- TH Huxley Above a butcher’s shop in Ealing in
- [Ernest Henry Starling and the birth of English Physiology](https://hekint.org/2020/06/29/ernest-henry-starling-and-the-birth-of-english-physiology/) - JMS Pearce Hull, England Science has only one language, quantity, and only one argument, the experiment-EH Starling Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927) (Fig 1) was an outstanding figure in the development of physiology whose prolific contributions made him one of the foremost scientists of his time. He was born on 17 April 1866 at 2 Barnsbury Square,
- [Andreas Roland Gruentzig](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/andreas-roland-gruentzig/) - Mahesh Raju, Cardiology, Andreas Roland Gruentzig, Hekton
- [Raymond de Vieussens](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/raymond-de-vieussens/) - Jeremy Parker, Cardiology, Raymond de Vieussens, Hektoen
- [History of endocarditis](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/history-of-endocarditis/) - Ramin Sam, Cardiology, Hektoen,
- [William Harvey](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/william-harvey/) - Philip Liebson, Cardiology, William Harvey, Hektoen
- [Remembering Sir Thomas Lewis’ contribution to understanding heart failure](https://hekint.org/2021/06/14/remembering-sir-thomas-lewis-contribution-to-understanding-heart-failure/) - Daniel GelfmanIndianapolis, Indiana, United States Sir Thomas Lewis (1881–1945) has been called one of the “fathers of modern cardiology” due to his many significant contributions to that discipline. In 1930 he wrote a landmark paper clarifying the disease “congestive (heart) failure,” revealing clues that are present in the jugular veins, for making the diagnosis and
- [Ibn al-Nafis and the pulmonary circulation](https://hekint.org/2017/12/20/ibn-al-nafis-pulmonary-circulation/) - Medical advances are often made over long periods of time, making it difficult to assign priority to any particular individual. Such has been the case for the ”discovery” of the pulmonary circulation, a distinction variously assigned to three anatomists of the sixteenth century, Michael Servetus, Realdo Colombo, and Andrea Cesalpino. But in 1924 the Egyptian
- [The heart of Giselle](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/the-heart-of-giselle/) - Emily Boyle, Cardiology, Giselle, Carlotta Grisi, Hektoen
- [The history of the stethoscope](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/the-history-of-the-stethoscope/) - MAS Ahmed, Victoria Turnock, Cardiology,Laennec, stethoscope, Hektoen
- [Doctor Riker’s decision](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/doctor-rikers-decision/) - Julie GianakonPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On the frigid Christmas night of 1776, Dr. John Riker was alarmed by the baying of dogs outside his New Jersey home. He went out into the darkness and discovered that the cause of the commotion was a regiment of armed men. Assuming they belonged to the British army, he angrily ordered
- [Picasso and medicine: From early paintings to a syndrome](https://hekint.org/2022/09/29/picasso-and-medicine-from-early-paintings-to-a-syndrome/) - A recent paper suggested "Pablo Picasso syndrome” when describing the auras of some migraine patients who experience distortions in size and distance...
- [Interpreting René Magritte’s <i>The Rape</i>](https://hekint.org/2022/12/19/interpreting-rene-magrittes-the-rape/) - René Magritte's work is subject to subjective interpretation, as might have been illustrated by the reaction of three hypothetical observers...
- [Pietro Longhi: appearances are deceiving](https://hekint.org/2018/08/30/pietro-longhi-appearances-are-deceiving/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Pietro Longhi’s depictions of Venetian society delight the eye by his detailed renderings of elegant satin dresses, demure shoes, and fashionable wigs. But appearances can be deceiving. Though he lavishes attention on the attractive façade of his subjects, he is equally concerned with their actions. He invites the viewer into
- [The <i>Girl with a Pearl Earring</i>—A vanitas?](https://hekint.org/2021/01/29/the-girl-with-a-pearl-earring-a-vanitas/) - James LindesayLeicester, United Kingdom It is a truism that you only have one opportunity to see a picture for the first time. However, in our image-saturated age, by the time you get to see a famous painting in the flesh (so to speak) you will have been so primed with reproductions, commentaries, and received opinions
- [Daumier's doctors](https://hekint.org/2022/05/25/daumiers-doctors/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."– Reinhold Niebuhr Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) was a "fundamentally discontented" French social critic, painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He produced over 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1000 drawings, 1000 engravings, and 4000 lithographs.1 Balzac said of his work, "There is something of Michelangelo in him." Daumier hated anything
- [Auguste Renoir and his arthritis](https://hekint.org/2023/03/09/auguste-renoir-and-his-arthritis/) - Renowned for his colorful portraits and landscapes, Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) was one of the greatest French Impressionists. He painted some 4,000 compositions, many still admired all over the world. But during his last twenty years, he suffered from a debilitating illness that greatly impacted his work. As a child, Renoir contracted pneumonia, which left him
- [Farewell, dear pictures that I have loved so well](https://hekint.org/2022/11/07/farewell-dear-pictures-that-i-have-loved-so-well/) - For nearly two decades Cardinal Jules Mazarin was the de facto ruler of France and the most powerful person in Europe. Born in Italy in 1602, he worked as a Papal diplomat but offered his services to Cardinal Richelieu and moved to Paris in 1640. When Richelieu died in 1642, he acted as the head
- [Gerrit Dou and his Netherlandish quacks](https://hekint.org/2018/09/17/gerrit-dou-and-his-netherlandish-quacks/) - Gerrit Dou (1613-1675), one of Rembrandt’s first students, was born thirteen years before his contemporary Jan Steen and died four years before him. Both painted similar works of contrasting light and dark, both lived most of their lives in Leiden, and both included in their work several scenes illustrating healthcare in the Netherlands in the
- [Habsburg dynasty and progenia](https://hekint.org/2022/03/03/habsburg-dynasty-and-progenia/) - Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Oscar Wilde (1854–1900, Irish poet) once said that "LIFE IMITATES ART. However, much more often, ART IS THE ONE THAT IMITATES LIFE."1,2 In PROGENIA (mandibular prognathism) there is a poor relationship between the upper and lower teeth, upper and lower jaws, or between the jaw and the teeth. The most severe form
- [Reflections on medicine and art](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/reflections-on-medicine-and-art/) - Bojana Cokic, Spring 2015, Art Flashes, Juan Carreno de Miranda, Giovanni Francesca Carota, Diego Velasquez, Hektoen
- [Fraudulent medical research and “zombie articles”](https://hekint.org/2023/03/16/fraudulent-medical-research-and-zombie-articles/) - Even after it became known that this was fraud, none of the articles were retracted.
- [Further observations on the centenary of Vegemite](https://hekint.org/2023/03/23/further-observations-on-the-centenary-of-vegemite/) - Morris OdellMelbourne, Australia The articles by doctors James Franklin and George Dunea on Vegemite and Marmite1,2 certainly struck a chord with me. Their observation that Vegemite is a symbol of Australia’s national identity barely does justice to its place in Australian culture and ethos. Although it does originate from an attempt to make a similar
- [Painter Milene Pavlović Barili (1909–1945)](https://hekint.org/2023/03/29/painter-milene-pavlovic-barili-1909-1945/) - Mirjana Stojkovic-IvkovicBelgrade, Serbia Milena Pavlović Barili was one of the most avant-garde and interesting personalities of the world art scene in the first half of the twentieth century. Suffering was inextricably linked to her life. Through suffering, pain, and dreams colored with melancholy, she experienced her own existence and created in solitude. Loneliness, isolation, and
- [Drunk in love: Bodies and consumption in <i>Samson and Delilah</i>](https://hekint.org/2018/10/05/drunk-in-love-bodies-and-consumption-in-samson-and-delilah/) - Lee Andrews Peter Paul Rubens' rendition of Samson and Delilah (1610) depicts Samson sleeping on Delilah’s lap as a Philistine cuts his hair, thereby removing the secret to his herculean strength. The artist who gave us the term “Rubenesque,” in which the words “plump” and “pleasing” describe the female form, had much to express about
- [Epithets, solecisms, and Oslerian hagiography](https://hekint.org/2025/02/27/epithets-solecisms-and-oslerian-hagiography/) - Patrick FiddesMelbourne, Australia To have striven, to have made an effort, to have been true to certainIdeals—this alone is worth the struggle.1 On February 22, 1905, Sir William Osler delivered his final address at Johns Hopkins University, in which he said, "I desire no other epitaph...than the statement that I taught medical students in the
- [The wild Wolf and neurosyphilis](https://hekint.org/2025/02/27/the-wild-wolf-and-neurosyphilis/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain Von den Bergen sacht hernieder,Weckend die uralten Lieder,Steigt die wunderbare Nacht,Und die Gründe glänzen wieder,Wie du's oft im Traum gedacht. Gently down from the mountains,Waking the ancient songs,Rises the wonderful night,And the grounds shine again,As you often thought in your dreams. —“Nachtzauber”, Gedichte, von Joseph, Freiherr von Eichendorf Hugo Wolf, reputed as
- [Sir William Osler and Oxford](https://hekint.org/2023/04/03/sir-william-osler-and-oxford/) - Göran WettrellLund, Sweden William Osler was one of the most famous physicians and medical teachers of his time. He combined a wide knowledge of clinical medicine and science with humanity and approached patients and people in a humoristic and enthusiastic way.1 Osler has been called “the Father of Modern Medicine.” He revolutionized the teaching of
- [Book review: <i>Florence Nightingale’s Rivals: Nursing Through the Crimea</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/02/27/book-review-florence-nightingales-rivals-nursing-through-the-crimea/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Florence Nightingale is best remembered as the founder of modern nursing. She opened her famous nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital, London, in 1860. Her principles of nurse training were based on her experiences in the Crimean War a few years earlier. In this interesting and well-written book, the author, herself a
- [Dr. Ralph Schomburg, a fashionable physician](https://hekint.org/2017/01/26/dr-ralph-schomburg-a-fashionable-physician/) - George Dunea, Winter 2012, Art Flashes, Dr. Ralph Schomburg, Thomas Gainsborough, Hektoen,
- [Pareidolia Santa Fe](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/pareidolia-santa-fe/) - Vesna JovanovicChicago, Illinois, USA Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon of seeing a recognizable image in something otherwise random, like clouds or wood grain. In the summer of 2011, I spent two months as an artist in residence at the Santa Fe Art Institute, which is located in the high desert of New Mexico at about
- [Pareidolia](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/pareidolia/) - Vesna JovanovicChicago, Illinois, United States Artist's statement I began working on the Pareidolia series in 2002 as part of my interest in exploring the relationship between chance and order. After randomly spilling some ink on paper, I looked at the shapes and saw objects that I associate with science: test tubes, flasks, and other laboratory
- [Ambroise Paré](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/ambroise-pare/) - Hektoen, Lila Haile, Surgery, Summer 2012, Ambroise Pare
- [Joseph Warren: The forgotten founder](https://hekint.org/2019/02/27/the-forgotten-founder/) - Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States "If Warren had lived, Washington would have remained an obscurity."—Peter Oliver, former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court On June 17, a late spring New England morning, thousands of Bostonians will begin their day by traveling over the Zakim Bridge. Few will be aware of the significance of
- [Washington and his spectacles](https://hekint.org/2019/01/14/washington-and-his-spectacles/) - Ronald FishmanChicago, Illinois, United States After accepting the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, Washington took most of the Continental Army back up to the Northeast to cover the main British army based around New York City. In the winter of 1782-1783, with the peace negotiations going on in Paris, the encampment was located
- [The mystery of the hoofbeats](https://hekint.org/2025/02/24/the-mystery-of-the-hoofbeats/) - Edward TaborBethesda, Maryland, United States All physicians get phone calls from time to time from friends asking for medical advice. I received one of these calls from a pharmacologist I knew. A few weeks prior, his wife had begun having memory loss and difficulty walking. The day before he called me, she began losing consciousness
- [The trouble with the belly button](https://hekint.org/2021/02/25/the-trouble-with-the-belly-button/) - Tonse N. K. RajuGaithersburg, 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 to their
- [Witch trials: The intersection of midwifery and gendered persecution](https://hekint.org/2025/02/20/witch-trials-the-intersection-of-midwifery-and-gendered-persecution/) - Lara SheehanCork, Ireland Oppressionist behavior towards women was seen during the witch trials of the 16th and 17th centuries, where the illogical execution of thousands of innocent women occurred.1 Midwives were among these executed women for the role they played in being with and caring for women. In the 16th and 17th centuries the subjugation
- [Hulusi Behçet (1889–1948)](https://hekint.org/2025/02/20/hulusi-behcet-1889-1948/) - Umut AkovaAtlanta, Georgia, United States Hulusi Behçet is remembered for describing the rare disease that now bears his name. Born on February 20, 1889, in Istanbul, he moved to Damascus at a young age. He attended a French-speaking elementary school, learning French, Latin, and German. At age sixteen, in 1906, he enrolled at the Imperial
- [Soap and bathing in ancient and modern times](https://hekint.org/2025/02/20/soap-and-bathing-in-ancient-and-modern-times/) - Humans have used soap since time immemorial. Yet bathing was not always a high priority, not even at the elegant court of Louis XIV, where noblemen relied largely on using perfume. “I am coming home, do not wash,” wrote Napoleon to his wife Josephine, concerned that she would wash away her pheromones. John Wesley preached
- [Early accounts of meningitis](https://hekint.org/2025/02/20/early-accounts-of-meningitis/) - JMS PearceHull, England Few illnesses convey more fear of a swift, fatal outcome than does meningitis. Cerebrospinal meningitis was once known as spotted fever, cerebrospinal fever, typhus cerebralis, or meningitis epidemica. In Greek meninx, or in Latin meningeus, is a membrane. In English literature, meninges appeared in 1543: “Whan the brayne pan is remoued, there appere two rymes,
- [TB or not to be?](https://hekint.org/2025/02/20/tb-or-not-to-be/) - My fibrotic lungs will testify A struggle that no one can quantify
- [Invitation to tea](https://hekint.org/2024/12/23/invitation-to-tea/) - I do not need to see the overseas news with the terrified faces of refugees coming ashore to feel empathy.
- [Alice Fisher: A Nightingale in Philadelphia](https://hekint.org/2025/02/13/alice-fisher-a-nightingale-in-philadelphia/) - Karen EgenesCentennial, Colorado, United States In 1883, the board of the Guardians of the Poor, the administrators of the Philadelphia almshouse, faced a dilemma. The institution, founded in 1732 and often referred to as "Old Blockley," was a combination of an almshouse for paupers, workhouse for vagrants, jail for criminals, asylum for the insane, and
- [Seminal contributions from chiefs of surgery at the University of Illinois](https://hekint.org/2025/02/05/seminal-contributions-from-chiefs-of-surgery-at-the-university-of-illinois/) - In May of 1881, Drs. Charles Warrington Earle and Abraham Reeves Jackson conceived of a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Chicago (P&S).
- [Portraits of William Hunter by Reynolds, Chamberlin, and Ramsay](https://hekint.org/2025/01/16/portraits-of-william-hunter-by-reynolds-chamberlin-and-ramsay/) - Three interesting portraits of the anatomist Dr William Hunter contain personalized, cryptic symbols and plain emblems of anatomy and the Enlightenment.
- [Two medical pioneers named Whipple](https://hekint.org/2025/02/18/two-medical-pioneers-named-whipple/) - Two medical pioneers, both sharing the surname Whipple but not related to one another and working in distinct fields of medicine, made a lasting impact on the treatment of two diseases that in their time were universally fatal. Dr. George Hoyt Whipple (1878–1976) was a physician, pathologist, and medical researcher whose work revolutionized the treatment
- [Lillian Wald (1867–1940): Pioneer patient advocate and public health nurse](https://hekint.org/2025/02/13/lillian-wald-1867-1940-pioneer-patient-advocate-and-public-health-nurse/) - Barbara ShawChicago, Illinois, United States “Reform can be accomplished when attitudes are changed.”1—Lillian Wald In the teeming tenements of New York City’s Lower East Side in the 1890s, Lillian Wald, a young nurse, came to the aid of a young immigrant girl whose mother was hemorrhaging. She was drenched with blood after giving birth in
- [Omugwo: A celebration of motherhood](https://hekint.org/2025/02/13/omugwo-a-celebration-of-motherhood/) - Rita Oghenero OmueroChicago, Illinois, United States In the days leading up to her due date, I called my sister, Chioma.“Sister, how far?” I greeted her in our usual way.“I dey o!” she responded. I could hear the fatigue in her voice.“When did the doctor say the baby was coming?” I asked.“Some days, or a week
- [Fibromuscular dysplasia](https://hekint.org/2025/02/05/fibromuscular-dysplasia/) - Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a disorder of the arteries resulting in “arterial beading” or a “string of beads”.
- [<i>Clausoque stomacho</i>: An unrecognized factor in the death of the Elder Pliny](https://hekint.org/2025/02/05/clausoque-stomacho-an-unrecognized-factor-in-the-death-of-the-elder-pliny/) - We probably will never know the precise cause of the Elder Pliny’s death, but what if the Younger Pliny did mean the stomach after all?
- [A personal memory of Davy Smyth Torrens](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/a-personal-memory-of-davy-smyth-torrens/) - I first met Professor Davy Smyth Torrens in September 1962. I was terrified.
- [John Snow](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/john-snow/) - JMS PearceHull, England John Snow (1813–1858) (Fig 1) was a pioneer of modern epidemiology who almost eradicated cholera from London when, before bacteria were discovered, he showed that cholera was a waterborne infection. His vital part in ether and chloroform anesthesia is often forgotten. And, as an accomplished physician, he wrote many clinical articles about
- [Boredom in hospitalized patients](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/boredom-in-hospitalized-patients/) - For patients in the hospital, having avenues to relieve boredom, express creativity, exercise the mind, and connect with other people can be highly grounding.
- [Can a nurse ensure a legacy?](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/can-a-nurse-ensure-a-legacy/) - Sally Stiffler, who perhaps “did what any other nurse would have done,” has a unique legacy that shines light on the work of all nurses.
- [On eating the heart of the Sun King, Louis XIV](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/on-eating-the-heart-of-the-sun-king-louis-xiv/) - Since time immemorial it has been the custom of certain cultures to bury the heart of deceased kings or rulers separately from their body. This practice has spanned centuries and reflected a variety of different religious, political, and cultural beliefs. For example, ancient Egyptians believed the heart was the seat of the soul and placed
- [Mimetic medical terminologies inspired by the plant world](https://hekint.org/2025/02/03/mimetic-medical-terminologies-inspired-by-the-plant-world/) - Saty Satya-MurtiSanta Maria, California, United States Plants have long inspired humans. Early natural scientists were struck by similarities between structural anatomy in animals and the botanical arrangements of plants. Bent tree trunks, spreading foliage, forested canopies, and curvaceous tendrils inspired them to draw artistic comparisons, both obvious and imagined, between plants and animals. Phenomenologists coined
- [The myth of knowledge](https://hekint.org/2023/05/15/the-myth-of-knowledge/) - Chloe LeeSingapore Legend has it that aeons ago on the Island of Colchis hung a magical Golden Fleece that could heal any disease. Modern medicine has proposed a new explanation for this incredible tale: Colchicum autumnale, a flowering plant now used to produce colchicine. Since Grecian antiquity, its therapeutic properties have been widely acknowledged, and
- [Brigadier General Clara Adams-Ender: A transformational nurse leader](https://hekint.org/2025/01/30/brigadier-general-clara-adams-ender-a-transformational-nurse-leader/) - LaTonya JonesChicago, Illinois, United States One of the most coveted military awards is the Army Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB). It is awarded to soldiers who demonstrate excellent performance of common military tasks while simultaneously exhibiting an expert level of proficiency in applying basic medical care in the field.1 All branches of the military medical
- [Notable nurses in World War I](https://hekint.org/2025/01/30/notable-nurses-in-world-war-i/) - Sonali BhansaliChicago, Illinois, United States Nurses have made important contributions in all aspects and eras of healthcare, including war time. Jane Rignel, Linnie Leckrone, and Irene Robar are three nurses who were recognized and awarded for their work on the front lines in France during World War I. Rignel was the chief nurse who supervised
- [Massaging the baby](https://hekint.org/2025/01/30/massaging-the-baby/) - The centuries-old practice of baby massage has been used as early as 2670 BC in China to promote bonding between parent and child and demonstrate affection.
- [Viruses and bacteria series](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/viruses-and-bacteria-series/) - Laura OlearChicago, Illinois, USA Artist's statement We live in an age of profound advances in health and medicine, yet there has never been a wider gap between objective and perceptive health. I am interested in the ways in which many people dissociate themselves from their bodies and health, while others focus fixatedly on them. The
- [Working abroad](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/working-abroad/) - Nursing school in the Philippines is among the most expensive undergraduate programs here, yet guarantees financial stability—but only if we work abroad.
- [Metrodora: Egyptian physician, midwife, and surgeon](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/metrodora-egyptian-physician-midwife-and-surgeon/) - Geraldine MillerLiverpool, England Metrodora is considered to be the “the mother of gynecology.”1 Yet, for many centuries, she has remained unknown. Even today, there are few within the medical community who know much about her pioneering work as a midwife, gynecologist, and surgeon who performed “procedures ahead of her era.”2 She is believed to have
- [Multiple personalities are taking over me](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/multiple-personalities-are-taking-over-me/) - Suddenly reminded, it's been twenty-five days, Since last my other self-emerged in her mysterious way.
- [Leonardo’s <i>Vitruvian Man</i>, a self portrait?](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/leonardos-vitruvian-man-a-self-portrait/) - JMS PearceHull, England Amongst Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452–1519) unrivalled masterpieces are the Mona Lisa (c. 1503), The Last Supper (c. 1495–1498), Salvator Mundi (c. 1499–1510), and the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490). All have been subject to countless commentaries and learned descriptions.1,2 Just as the fictional works of novelists often include (albeit subconsciously) aspects of their
- [Carriages in history and medicine](https://hekint.org/2025/01/23/carriages-in-history-and-medicine/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel In Ezekiel 1:4-28 there is a reference to a big cloud with a strong wind and fire flashing from it. Inside the cloud, four wheels touched the ground, and all the wheels looked as if they were made from a clear, yellow jewel.1 Various museums, such as the Museum of Science
- [Chevalier Jackson, MD: Patient safety champion](https://hekint.org/2025/01/16/chevalier-jackson-md-patient-safety-champion/) - The Chevalier Jackson, MD, collection displays more than 2,300 foreign objects retrieved from the larynx, trachea, or esophagus of patients.
- [From bedside to bench: The discovery of calmodulinopathy](https://hekint.org/2025/01/16/from-bedside-to-bench-the-discovery-of-calmodulinopathy/) - Clinical knowledge about LQTS evolved following the establishment of the International LQTS Registry in 1979. Diagnostic criteria for LQTS were introduced in...
- [A “semi-slaughter and a scandal of surgery”: The first documented tracheostomy in history](https://hekint.org/2025/01/16/a-semi-slaughter-and-a-scandal-of-surgery-the-first-documented-tracheostomy-in-history/) - The first documented, successful tracheostomy in human history occurred in 1546, performed by the Italian physician Antonio Brasavola.
- [Book review: <i>Casanova and Enlightenment</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/01/06/book-review-casanova-and-enlightenment/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The eighteenth-century polymath Casanova is best remembered today for his amorous adventures. Sadly, his considerable contributions in a variety of fields of learning are often forgotten. Giacomo Casanova was a linguist, soldier, clergyman, entrepreneur, mathematician, diplomat, and conman. He spent time in prison but also was an accomplished man of letters
- [The tragedy of the Shah of Shahs](https://hekint.org/2025/01/13/the-tragedy-of-the-shah-of-shahs/) - The story of the last Shah began with his father, Reza Khan, a military commander who seized power in 1925 and established the Pahlavi dynasty. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ascended to the throne in 1941 during World War II; the British and Soviets forced Reza Shah’s abdication because of his German sympathies. The early
- [Self-inflicted](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/self-inflicted/) - Laura OlearChicago, Illinois, USA Artist's statement This series of mixed media drawings is abstracted from biological imagery. They explore issues of control over one’s own health in the form of "self-inflicted" conditions or diseases. Obesity, anorexia, smoking, tanning, excessive alcohol consumption, and self-mutilation can all result in a variety of potentially life-threatening conditions. One could
- [Questioning immunology and the soul](https://hekint.org/2022/08/03/questioning-immunology-and-the-soul/) - Vani GhaiPune, India The long and tiring battle with COVID has stimulated modern medicine to investigate new approaches to understanding the science of immunity. It has long been apparent that immune systems exist almost ubiquitously across the living and that all diseases involve the immune system. But even though immunology plays a decisive role in
- [Helen Rosaline Ashton: Physician and author](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/helen-rosaline-ashton-physician-and-author/) - Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Medicine has long been a fertile training ground for those who abandon their profession to become writers. Their number includes Anton Chekhov, William Somerset Maugham, John Keats, Mikhail Bulgakov, William Carlos Williams, and Arthur Conan Doyle.Helen Ashton has been largely forgotten as one of these medically trained authors. She was born on 18
- [Greeneland revealed](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/greeneland-revealed/) - Author Graham Greene believed that his bipolar disorder was an essential part of his novels.
- [Book review: <i>The Woman Who Revolutionised Nurses’ Training: The Life and Career of Rebecca Strong</i>](https://hekint.org/2025/01/02/book-review-the-woman-who-revolutionised-nurses-training-the-life-and-career-of-rebecca-strong/) - In this new biography, the life of the pioneering nurse from Scotland, Rebecca Strong, has now been told.
- [Early depictions of reconstructive surgery: The tubed pedicle flap](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/early-depictions-of-reconstructive-surgery-the-tubed-pedicle-flap/) - Ariana ShaariRutgers, New Jersey, United States The history of head and neck reconstruction is as rich as it is complex. Reconstructive techniques in this domain are broadly categorized as local pedicle flaps, regional flaps, and free flaps.1 These methods trace their origin to ancient practices, with renowned surgeon Sushruta’s use of the forehead flap for
- [Belmont DeForest Bogart (1867–1934): Cardiac surgeon and father of a famous actor](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/belmont-deforest-bogart-1867-1934-cardiac-surgeon-and-father-of-a-famous-actor/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Bogart–Bacall syndrome (BBS)1,2 is a voice disorder caused by abuse or overuse of the vocal cords; people who speak or sing outside their normal vocal range can develop it. Symptoms are chiefly an unusually deep or rough voice, or dysphonia, and vocal fatigue. The syndrome is named after the famous actor
- [The history of operating on the abdomen (laparotomy)](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/the-history-of-operating-on-the-abdomen-laparotomy/) - For many centuries, "laparotomy" (derived from the Greek "lapara", “flank or soft part”, and "tome", “to cut”) was considered extremely dangerous and rarely attempted. There is a poorly documented report on Jacob Nufer, an Austrian or Swiss veterinarian or even pig farmer, who around the year 1550 saved the life of his wife by removing
- [Franz Boas (1858–1942): Titan of Anthropology](https://hekint.org/2025/01/09/franz-boas-1858-1942-titan-of-anthropology/) - Hailed as the "Father of American Anthropology", Franz Boas was well ahead of his time in challenging prevailing racial theories and promoting an understanding of diverse human cultures. He influenced a generation of younger scholars who followed his way of thinking, greatly contributing to the study of culture, race, and language and laying the groundwork
- [James Robinson: First anaesthetic in England](https://hekint.org/2025/01/06/james-robinson-first-anaesthetic-in-england/) - JMS PearceHull, England The dramatic benefits of ether anesthesia spread astonishingly quickly from the New World to the Old.1-3 James Robinson (1813–1862), a Guy’s Hospital trained dental surgeon, practiced at 14 Gower Street. A few doors away lived Francis Boott, an American expatriate physician. The Royal Mail steamship Acadia, on 16 December 1846, docked in
- [Remembering George](https://hekint.org/2025/01/06/remembering-george/) - Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It is early morning on New Year’s Eve, and as I am about to get up from a good night’s sleep, I remember George. There were three of us who had graduated together from the same high school class half a century ago and subsequently went into medicine. University admission was the
- [Jean-Baptiste de Sénac and his early textbook on cardiology](https://hekint.org/2022/05/12/jean-baptiste-de-senac-and-his-early-textbook-on-cardiology/) - Göran WettrellLund, Sweden William Harvey was an important figure in the early days of cardiovascular physiology. Based on meticulous observations, he published De Motu Cordis and Sanguinus in 1628 and has been proposed as the founder of physiology and cardiology.1 During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, physicians such as Raymond Vieussens (1641-1715), Giovanni-Maria
- [René Théophile Hyacinthe Laënnec and the stethoscope](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/rene-theophile-hyacinthe-laennec-and-the-stethoscope/) - Philip Liebson, Cardiology, Laennec, Hektoen
- [Jean Corvisart: Napoleon's physician](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/jean-corvisart-napoleons-physician/) - George Dunea, Cardiology, Jean Corvisart, Hektoen
- [Bank of England Medical Officers: From Napoleonic to modern times](https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/bank-of-england-medical-officers-from-napoleonic-to-modern-times/) - Charles Raymond Gill, Spring 2014, History Essays, Alfred Smee, Arthur Philip Gibbons, Hektoen,
- [Blood at Borodino](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/blood-at-borodino/) - George Dunea, War & Veterans, Winter 2012, Borodino, Louis Lejeune, Hektoen
- [Napoleon’s final illness](https://hekint.org/2024/01/04/napoleons-final-illness/) - Napoleon was suffering from recurrent dysuria, abdominal pain, hemorrhoids, vomiting, and hematemesis. His health deteriorated, and the attacks of vomiting...
- [Science, wine, and music in Asti](https://hekint.org/2024/12/30/science-wine-and-music-in-asti/) - Avi OhryTel Aviv, Israel Back in 1993, while spending a sabbatical in Long Island, a few medical colleagues suggested we meet at a special Italian restaurant called Asti. The restaurant was located at 13 E. 12th St. in Greenwich Village, NYC. It was a unique experience. Besides an excellent menu, many of the waiters were
- [Making a difference in the AIDS epidemic](https://hekint.org/2024/12/30/making-a-difference-in-the-aids-epidemic/) - Sandro VentoPhnom Penh, Cambodia Enzo entered the room with hesitancy. A nurse drew his blood, then moved him to where a young doctor was waiting, looking serious. As he asked Enzo to sit down, he inspired confidence. Enzo answered his initial questions with few words, having told his story too many times to too many
- [Tonsillectomy, then and now](https://hekint.org/2024/12/23/tonsillectomy-then-and-now/) - The story of tonsillectomy can be traced back to antiquity. As early as 2000 BC, Ayurvedic doctors used primitive tools and herbal remedies to remove their patients’ pus-laden tonsils. In Roman times, Cornelius Celsus (25 BC–50 AD) shelled out tonsils with only his fingers, Galen of Pergamon used a wire snare (121–200 AD), and Paul
- [They made their own insulin: The story of Eva and Viktor Saxl](https://hekint.org/2024/12/19/they-made-their-own-insulin-the-story-of-eva-and-viktor-saxl/) - Eva Saxl not only saved her own life by making insulin during World War II, but with her husband Viktor saved over 400 diabetics in war-torn Shanghai.
- [An emergency nurse in the time of Covid](https://hekint.org/2024/12/16/an-emergency-nurse-in-the-time-of-covid/) - It is the same routine in each room, and I start an IV and draw blood so lab does not also have to be exposed to Covid.
- [Prisoners on leave: Vietnam veterans and the Golden Age Western](https://hekint.org/2020/09/18/prisoners-on-leave-vietnam-veterans-and-the-golden-age-western/) - Edward Harvey Missoula, Montana, United States “I think we all died a little in that damn war.”—The Outlaw Josey Wales “So…what have you been up to?” When screening combat Vietnam veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder, I will often ask them about their hobbies or interests, since PTSD often manifests as an inability to find pleasure in
- [Waiting](https://hekint.org/2024/12/16/waiting-2/) - The refugee families I work with have difficulty with the practice of appointments. The refugee waiting time is giant, expansive, endless…but they are trying.
- [Claude Bernard, one of the greatest scientists](https://hekint.org/2018/10/25/claude-bernard-one-of-the-greatest-scientists/) - Claude Bernard (1813–1878), "one of the greatest of all men of science,” originated the term milieu intérieur, and furthered the concept of homeostasis. After an early high school and college education, he become an assistant in a druggist's shop and contemplated becoming a writer, but was persuaded to study medicine and became an intern at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in
- [A Tale of Two Tonics: Sino-Western psychopharmaceutical modernity in Shanghai, 1936](https://hekint.org/2020/05/15/a-tale-of-two-tonics-sino-western-psychopharmaceutical-modernity-in-shanghai-1936/) - Richard ZhangPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Shanghai, 1936: Positioned at the Yangtze Delta, this sprawling, bustling seaport was a multiplicity of cities. It was China’s most lucrative commercial hub for many business elites; a lavish, cosmopolitan adopted home for expatriates from at least forty-eight different nationalities; and a chaotic urban jungle for prostitutes, gangsters, and slum-dwellers
- [The heart in <i>Star Trek</i>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/the-heart-in-star-trek/) - Victor Grech, Cardiology, Star Trek, Hektoen
- [A case of toxic blood](https://hekint.org/2020/01/30/a-case-of-toxic-blood/) - Shruthi DeivasigamaniPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a blustery winter day, a molecule of water condenses around a particle of dust in the air. The structure grows in size as it falls closer to earth, and before it hits the ground outside, it has crystallized into a perfect, six-sided snowflake. Miles away, a thirty-one-year-old woman is
- [A midnight call](https://hekint.org/2024/12/09/a-midnight-call/) - Within a few minutes, I am driving to the hospital. It is mid-December, past midnight, with the temperature down to near freezing...
- [Frantisek Chvostek, a notable physician](https://hekint.org/2017/01/28/frantisek-chvostek-a-notable-physician/) - Mas AhmedAnna PayneUnited Kingdom Frantisek Chvostek was an eminent physician widely known for his description of the Chvostek sign, still widely used in clinical practice. Being born as the son of a leather tanner in nineteenth century Moravia was not the ideal start for a boy dreaming to become a surgeon, but that was the problem
- [The illness and death of Jane Austen](https://hekint.org/2024/10/24/the-illness-and-death-of-jane-austen/) - The final years of Jane Austen were overshadowed by a mysterious illness that has long since been a subject of speculation and debate. Her health began to decline in early 1816, when she was around forty years old. Her letters from that period make occasional references to fatigue and bouts of illness, but she tended
- [Samuel Vaisrub: An unforgettable editor](https://hekint.org/2024/12/09/samuel-vaisrub-an-unforgettable-editor/) - Sam Vaisrub eserves to be remembered in the book of man.
- [Paolo Sarpi: Venetian hero, Roman heretic](https://hekint.org/2024/12/05/paolo-sarpi-venetian-hero-roman-heretic/) - Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Though an obscure figure today, for many years Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) loomed large in the ecclesiastical, scientific, and political arenas of Europe. Macaulay praised him as his "favorite modern historian,"1 Boswell called him a genius, and Samuel Johnson considered translating him to the English-speaking world. A venerable polymath, he
- [In memoriam: James Parkinson](https://hekint.org/2024/12/05/in-memoriam-james-parkinson/) - JMS PearceHull, England The 21st of December 2024 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Dr James Parkinson (1755–1824), author of An Essay on the Shaking Palsy. He was buried in St. Leonard's church where a marble plaque elegantly summarising his life and work was unveiled in September 1955. Further reading Parkinson J. An
- [Book review: <i>X-ray</i>](https://hekint.org/2024/12/02/book-review-x-ray/) - The book is well written and the anecdotes and stories, predominantly from the US about the role of X-rays in popular culture, make for interesting reading.
- [Aequanimitas](https://hekint.org/2024/12/02/aequanimitas/) - JMS PearceHull, England Amongst many books and essays devoted to the ideology and practice of medicine in its widest sense, William Osler’s Aequanimitas1 stands out as a classic. Influenced by Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, published in 1686, Osler’s Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical Students, Nurses and Practitioners of Medicine was published in 1904.
- [The story of chocolate](https://hekint.org/2018/09/27/the-story-of-chocolate/) - Merve BerberAnkara, Turkey Chocolatl, meaning “bitter water,” was the earliest form of chocolate. It was a beverage that contained the seed of the cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) and was consumed by the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations of the Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec during sacrificial rituals to the gods and for medicinal use.1 The bitter seed kernels
- [Pietro Grimani: Venetian Doge and Fellow of the Royal Society (1667–1752)](https://hekint.org/2024/11/27/pietro-grimani-venetian-doge-and-fellow-of-the-royal-society-1667-1752/) - Pietro Grimani was one the most cultured of the 120 Doges who served as chief magistrates and leaders of the city and republic of Venice for more than one thousand years. Born into an ancient aristocratic family that had held essential positions in Venetian society, he had studied the classics as a young man, including
- [Reminiscences of a medical student in Australia](https://hekint.org/2024/11/25/reminiscences-of-a-medical-student-in-australia/) - In 1950 in Sydney's state, New South Wales, according to a charter promulgated by Queen Victoria, tertiary education was virtually free.
- [Whose name is writ in water: Life, serendipity, and fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva](https://hekint.org/2024/11/25/whose-name-is-writ-in-water-life-serendipity-and-fibrodysplasia-ossificans-progressiva/) - For my son it began with a mysterious limp when he was eight years old. FOP can also be triggered by trauma as mild as a bump or an injection.
- [The Turk’s Head Literary Club](https://hekint.org/2024/11/25/the-turks-head-literary-club/) - Elizabeth SteinhartJMS PearceHull, England We share a fascination for the varied activities, relics, and quirky names of eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries’ gentlemen’s clubs and societies. One of us (ES) recently found the blue plaque of the Turk’s Head Literary Club above a Chinese supermarket in London’s Soho. Distinguished literati, physicians, and scientists were members of such
- [The gift of the Medici](https://hekint.org/2023/08/23/the-gift-of-the-medici/) - Credit for the present status of Florence as a jewel of European art and culture is rarely given to where it is due. Accounts of its history are replete with descriptions of the founder of the Medici’s wealth, Giovanni de’ Bicci; the exploits of Cosimo, pater patriae; the splendor of Lorenzo the Magnificent; and the
- [The <i>Art of Medicine</i> is the essence of medical professionalism](https://hekint.org/2024/11/21/the-art-of-medicine-is-the-essence-of-medical-professionalism/) - Patrick FiddesAustralia The art consists in three things—the disease, the patient, and the physician. The physician is the servant of the art.1 Among the 412 aphorisms in Francis Adam's Genuine Works Of Hippocrates2 are three that employ the term “Art.” Two have achieved popular acclaim while the third, the “Art of Medicine,” has received fewer
- [Margaret Mead (1901–1978), controversial anthropologist pioneer](https://hekint.org/2024/11/21/margaret-mead-1901-1978-controversial-anthropologist-pioneer/) - Margaret Mead is remembered as one of the most important, though controversial, anthropologists of the twentieth century. She became famous through her classic work Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), in which she described the life and sexual practices of teenagers on two Samoan islands in the South Pacific. Her books were widely read and
- [Faith and symphony: Anton Bruckner’s trials and triumphs](https://hekint.org/2024/11/21/faith-and-symphony-anton-bruckners-trials-and-triumphs/) - Anton Bruckner's unwavering faith sustained him through failure and battles with obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and depression.
- [The early days of the Nobel Prize and Golden Age of Microbiology](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/the-early-days-of-the-nobel-prize-and-golden-age-of-microbiology/) - Juan-Carlos Arguelles, Winter 2013, Nobel Prize, Hektoen, Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, infectious diseases
- [Traditional obstetrics in Isaan, Thailand](https://hekint.org/2020/09/08/traditional-obstetrics-in-isaan-thailand/) - Khwan PhusrisomDurham, United Kingdom Traditional midwifery and the culture of birth in Isaan, Northeast Thailand, may hold lessons for the prevention of obstetric complications. Since traditional midwifery has been declining for the past two decades,1,2 in 2020 I interviewed elders in my home village in the Yang Talat district in order to preserve their rapidly
- [The history of eyeglasses](https://hekint.org/2024/11/14/the-history-of-eyeglasses/) - Efforts to improve vision date back to the ancient civilizations of India and China. Greek scholars such as Ptolemy and Euclid endeavored to understand the physics of light refraction, the mechanisms of lenses, and how their properties can enhance vision and literacy. The Romans magnified the letters they were looking at by placing reading stones
- [Physicians of the American Revolution](https://hekint.org/2024/11/12/physicians-of-the-american-revolution/) - The personal risk that each Signer of the Declaration of Independence assumed cannot be overstated.
- [Epidemic autism?](https://hekint.org/2024/11/12/epidemic-autism/) - Are the characteristics of autism spectrum disorder abnormal, or are they perhaps in some people no more than variations of normal, conventional behavior?
- [Gulliver at Luggnagg — Learning about the immortal struldbrugs (abridged)](https://hekint.org/2020/12/15/gulliver-at-luggnagg-learning-about-the-immortal-struldbrugs-abridged/) - The Luggnaggians are a polite and generous people . . . they show themselves courteous to strangers. One day . . . I was asked by a person of quality, “whether I had seen any of their struldbrugs, or immortals?” . . . He told me “that sometimes, though very rarely, a child happened to
- [Snake oil and snake oil salesmen](https://hekint.org/2024/10/28/snake-oil-and-snake-oil-salesmen/) - For some unknown reason, snake oil has been endowed with a wide array of healing powers for about three centuries.
- [A memorable veteran](https://hekint.org/2017/01/22/a-memorable-veteran/) - Putting together his age and the fact that it was the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day, I risked a guess. “Would you have gone to Normandy for the celebrations?”
- [Sam McGee, Dan, and me](https://hekint.org/2024/11/07/sam-mcgee-dan-and-me/) - A prodigious reader, Scottish poet Robert Service fell in love with the outdoors after reading Thoreau, Kipling, and B. Harte.
- [Von Recklinghausen (1833–1910)](https://hekint.org/2024/11/07/von-recklinghausen-1833-1910/) - Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen is remembered eponymously for describing the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis type 1. He was born in 1833 in Gütersloh, Westphalia, where his father was an elementary school teacher, and his mother died shortly after his birth. He attended high school at Ratsgymnasium in Bielefeld, studied medicine at the universities of Bonn, Würzburg,
- [Bicentenary of the birth of Pierre Paul Broca (1824–1880)](https://hekint.org/2024/10/31/bicentenary-of-the-birth-of-pierre-paul-broca-1824-1880/) - JMS PearceHull, England This year marks the bicentenary of the birth of Pierre Paul Broca, who established the cerebral localization of motor, expressive speech, and language function.1 He was the son of Jean “Benjamin” Broca, a surgeon in Napoleon’s army, and Annette Thomas. Broca was born on 28 June 1824 in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande in the Dordogne.
- [Democedes, “the most skillful physician of his time”](https://hekint.org/2024/11/07/democedes-the-most-skillful-physician-of-his-time/) - The renowned Greek physician Democedes of Croton is remembered for his expertise and influential role in the courts of ancient rulers. His father was Calliphon, a priest, physician, and of such savage temper that he caused Democedes to leave Croton and sail away to the island of Aegina. There he set up a medical practice
- [John Polidori, physician and writer](https://hekint.org/2024/10/31/john-polidori-physician-and-writer/) - Nicolas RoblesBadajoz, Spain He thought, in fine, that the dreams of poets were the realities of life.—Polidori, The Vampire Some have regarded John William Polidori as the inventor of the vampire ghost story style. Born in 1795 in the City of Westminster, he was the son of Gaetano Polidori, who had come to England in
- [The rise and fall of human dissection ](https://hekint.org/2024/10/31/the-rise-and-fall-of-human-dissection/) - The practice of dissecting human bodies can be traced back to the Greek physicians Herophilus (335–280 BC) and Erasistratus (304–250 BC) of Alexandria, or even earlier to a rite of passage of the pharaohs to the kingdom of the dead. Roman law and early Christian teachings prohibited dissection, so that early anatomists such as Galen
- [Emil von Behring and passive antibody therapy](https://hekint.org/2024/10/28/emil-von-behring-and-passive-antibody-therapy/) - In a March 1929 editorial, the British Medical Journal referred to Emil von Behring (1854–1917) as one of the greatest benefactors of humanity. Recipient of the first-ever Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and awarded a title of nobility, the German physiologist who developed a serum for treating diphtheria and tetanus was showered with orders
- [The Siege of Constantinople as witnessed by a physician, 1453](https://hekint.org/2024/10/28/the-siege-of-constantinople-as-witnessed-by-a-physician-1453/) - The diary by Nicolò Barbaro of the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks remains one of the most valuable firsthand sources of the seven-week siege of the Byzantine capital by the forces of Sultan Mehmed II. The author was an Italian physician, born into a prominent Venetian family, who may have been in Constantinople
- [A doctor in his own mind](https://hekint.org/2024/10/28/a-doctor-in-his-own-mind/) - I realize my father’s search to understand his condition quietly shaped my own medical career.
- [Old dogs teach psychology](https://hekint.org/2022/09/06/old-dogs-teach-psychology/) - Simon WeinPetach Tikva, Israel The dog is a man's best friend. Cats, horses, cows, rabbits, dolphins, and rarely goldfish are also good friends to humans, but none compare with the dog. In support of this contention, there are many wonderful books and films about dogs. The other animals, especially horses, are also the subjects of
- [Doctors and illness in Boccaccio’s <I>Decameron</I>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/doctors-and-illness-in-boccaccios-decameron/) - Maria SgouridouGreece Introduction Giovanni Boccaccio was born in Tuscany in 1313, the illegitimate son of a merchant of Certaldo, who launched him on a commercial career hoping he would follow in his steps. Sent to Naples for that reason, he soon abandoned commerce and the study of canon law, and began instead to write stories
- [A portrait of dementia](https://hekint.org/2022/05/05/a-portrait-of-dementia/) - Lindsay RipleyDallas, Texas, United States A few months ago, I watched The Father, a film with Olivia Colman in a main role and Anthony Hopkins as the titular father. Hopkins plays Anthony, a character who bears Hopkins’ own name because writer and director Florian Zeller wrote the part imagining Hopkins in it. Like Hopkins, now
- [Canadian contributions to the study of pathology](https://hekint.org/2020/06/12/canadian-contributions-to-the-study-of-pathology/) - Guillermo QuinonezLaurette GeldenhuysNova Scotia, Canada Canadian and American medicine in general, and pathology in particular, have developed in parallel and in synchrony since the nineteenth century. Despite Canada’s limited population, scientific cultural similarities and geographical conditions would explain such development. Canadians, some of whom practiced both in the U.S. and Canada, have made important contributions
- [R. Austin Freeman and the Victorian forensic thriller](https://hekint.org/2021/12/09/r-austin-freeman-and-the-victorian-forensic-thriller/) - Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Many people today are acquainted with well-known books and television series of forensic crime fiction. The modern detective fiction writer is expected to provide detailed descriptions of autopsies, current technology, pharmacology, and toxicology. Yet, even in this relatively new version of the old genre of police fiction, there is nothing new under
- [James Herriot and burnout](https://hekint.org/2021/08/17/james-herriot-and-burnout/) - Sylvia PamboukianMoon Township, Pennsylvania, United States The James Herriot veterinary stories are so beloved by readers that they have inspired two television series called All Creatures Great and Small and have sold over sixty million copies.1 James Herriot is the pen name of James Alfred “Alf” Wight, who was born in 1916 and graduated from
- [Suffering and empathy in the stories of Anton Chekhov and their relevance to healthcare today](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/suffering-and-empathy-in-the-stories-of-anton-chekhov-and-their-relevance-to-healthcare-today/) - Peter McCannLondon Throughout his life, Anton Chekhov was often faced with the reality of suffering in human existence. His family’s bankruptcy and life of poverty in Moscow influenced young Anton’s thoughts about suffering and degradation in society, and his brief period of medical practice in Moscow provided him with enough experience to write over 150
- [The Joker and his Frankenstein](https://hekint.org/2021/10/07/the-joker-and-his-frankenstein/) - Snaiha Iyer NarayanIndia In recent decades, cinematic portrayals of medical conditions have garnered variant review. The Joker has been an iconic film in popular culture in part because of its portrayal of mental illness and depiction of societal stereotypes. An often disregarded facet in the character of the Joker lies in the realm of epigenetics.
- [<I>Bibliotheca Sibbaldiana</I>](https://hekint.org/2019/05/15/bibliotheca-sibbaldiana/) - Colin McDowallEdinburgh, Scotland On 5 February 1723 a crowd gathered at the house of the late Sir Robert Sibbald, noted Edinburgh physician, for the auction of his personal library. Sibbald was a considerable collector of books and after his death in August 1722 the sale of his surviving library garnered considerable attention. Although printed as
- [Book review: <I>Creative Arts in Humane Medicine</I>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/book-review-creative-arts-in-humane-medicine/) - Mary Ann McDermottChicago, Illinois, United States McLean’s new book is for all those interested in healthcare and the arts. The book compiles programming descriptions, “how to” instructions, small research studies, personal memoirs, and short essays by medicine, nursing, and dentistry professionals as well as by patients, social service professionals, artists, students, and others! The book
- [<i>Breaking Bad</i>: A case study of antisocial personality disorders](https://hekint.org/2023/04/25/breaking-bad-a-case-study-of-antisocial-personality-disorders/) - Jason LiuSan Francisco Bay Area, California, United States Both psychopathy and the non-clinical “sociopathy”1 have been diagnosed in infamous serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and John Gacy, and popular films and TV shows, like American Psycho and Dexter, have drawn from these diagnoses. Psychopathy and sociopathy are amongst the most complex mental disorders. Both
- [<I>Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanity</I>](https://hekint.org/2018/07/19/self-and-the-phenomenon-of-life-a-biologist-examines-life-from-molecules-to-humanity/) - Ramon LimIowa City, Iowa, United States Since an early age, I have often wondered who we are (individually as well as a species) and what might be our place in the universe. I believe that the ultimate goal of science, apart from its utilitarian role, is to help us gain insight into what life is
- [Black man, white coat](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/black-man-white-coat/) - Yeji LeeToronto, Canada There is a fine line between prejudice and experience, and it is a line that grows all the more important for someone who is a doctor. In his memoir, Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine, Dr. Damon Tweedy ushers his readers through his years in
- [Aging in (another) place: Magda Szabo’s novel <I>Iza’s Ballad</I>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/aging-in-another-place-magda-szabos-novel-izas-ballad/) - Carol LevineNew York, New York, United States In Hungary in the early 1960s, Izabella (Iza) Szöcs is a physician, and a very good one, according to her patients and peers. Her specialty is rheumatology, but she makes “notes not just about the pain in the hands or feet or aching joint, but about the person
- [Thomas Mann’s <I>The Magic Mountain</I>: About a whistling pneumothorax and pulmonary tuberculosis](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/thomas-manns-the-magic-mountain-about-a-whistling-pneumothorax-and-pulmonary-tuberculosis/) - Peter KorstenGöttingen, Germany Originally intended as a novella, Thomas Mann’s (1875–1955) multilayered novel The Magic Mountain documents in fine detail the methods used to treat lung diseases and especially pulmonary tuberculosis at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mann’s protagonist, Hans Castorp, who intended to spend only three weeks in the sanatorium in the Swiss mountains
- [“John Barleycorn Must Die”: Addiction attributions in Jack London’s <I>Alcoholic Memoirs</I>](https://hekint.org/2021/08/27/john-barleycorn-must-die-addiction-attributions-in-jack-londons-alcoholic-memoirs/) - Ad KapteinBarend FlorijnPim van der MeerLeiden, the Netherlands A thousand words every morning—with iron discipline, Jack London adhered to his writing routine. Later in the day, he would turn to John Barleycorn: beer, wine, whisky, and brandy. His John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs (1913) tells of his drinking career, which took off after inadvertently sipping his
- [The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part III](https://hekint.org/2019/08/16/the-anatomy-of-bibliotherapy-how-fiction-heals-part-iii/) - Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States A cure for loneliness In the video “What is Literature For?” produced by The School of Life, author Alain de Botton claims that books are a cure for loneliness. Since we cannot always say what we are really thinking in civilized conversations, literature often describes who we genuinely are more
- [The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part II](https://hekint.org/2019/08/16/the-anatomy-of-bibliotherapy-how-fiction-heals-part-ii/) - Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States The placebo effect When first exploring literature’s psychological effects on the reader, it is important to consider whether a book can have healing properties by acting as a placebo. In Persuasion and Healing, Jerome Frank discusses the importance of the connection between patient and healer. In his chapter on the
- [The anatomy of bibliotherapy: How fiction heals, part I](https://hekint.org/2019/08/16/the-anatomy-of-bibliotherapy-how-fiction-heals-part-i/) - Dustin Grinnell Boston, Massachusetts, United States Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.—Rudyard Kipling Literature is medicine for the soul In the 1980s, the mother of Northrop Frye, a Canadian literary scholar, was in the hospital, ill and delirious. Seeking to ease her suffering, her father gave her the twenty-five books of
- [Nikolai Gogol’s <I>The Diary of a Madman</I>](https://hekint.org/2019/01/22/nikolai-gogols-the-diary-of-a-madman/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States 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 story; a genre
- [Mary Shelley's <I>Frankenstein</I>: A cautionary tale](https://hekint.org/2019/01/22/mary-shelleys-frankenstein-a-cautionary-tale/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States 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 its literary and philosophic
- [Dr. Charles Drew, Philip Roth, and race](https://hekint.org/2019/01/22/dr-charles-drew-philip-roth-and-race/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States “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 Dr. Charles Drew was.”“Dr. Charles Drew,” she told
- [Book review: <I>The stomach - A biography</I> by Jeremy Hugh Baron](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/book-review-the-stomach-a-biography-by-jeremy-hugh-baron/) - James L. FranklinChicago, Illinois, United States Jeremy Hugh Baron, a well-lettered physician, scientist, and scholar takes us through a comprehensive tour of the “The Stomach” in recorded history. It is immediately apparent that Dr. Baron is not limiting himself to the anatomical organ, but to what the patient suffering from abdominal distress perceives to be
- [<I>GI Joe: The life and career of Dr. Joseph B. Kirsner</I>](https://hekint.org/2017/01/27/gi-joe-the-life-and-career-of-dr-joseph-b-kirsner/) - James L. FranklinChicago, IL On September 21, 2009, Dr. Joseph B. Kirsner, University of Chicago Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, will celebrate his 100th birthday. In his centennial year, the American Gastroenterological Association Foundation for Digestive Health and Nutrition honored Dr. Kirsner with a celebratory dinner on May 29, 2009 as a part
- [The smell of dystopia: <i>Brave New World</i> and <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>](https://hekint.org/2023/11/30/the-smell-of-dystopia-brave-new-world-and-nineteen-eighty-four/) - "One of the cardinal sins in the brave new world is retaining one’s natural aroma.”
- [Polluting puberty, monstrous menstruation, and fatal femininity](https://hekint.org/2023/08/03/polluting-puberty-monstrous-menstruation-and-fatal-femininity/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “[If] men could menstruate…menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event.”1—Gloria Steinem, journalist and political activist Ancient history has shown us that men sometimes looked upon women’s menstrual periods with perplexity, wonder, and fear.2 While it has been suggested that some men have “vagina envy” and “womb envy,” and feel left out
- [Book review: <i>The Soul of Medicine: Tales from the Bedside</i>](https://hekint.org/2023/01/17/book-review-the-soul-of-medicine-tales-from-the-bedside/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Life is short, and the art long; the occasion fleeting, experience fallacious, and judgment difficult.”—Hippocrates The Soul of Medicine is a slender (200-page) book by surgeon-author Sherwin B. Nuland. It contains twenty-one essays, each one based on a “tale” told to Nuland by either a medical student (one), or by physicians in
- [Making radiation visible: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Godzilla](https://hekint.org/2022/11/23/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
- [Book review: <i>The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste</i>](https://hekint.org/2022/11/17/book-review-the-big-necessity-adventures-in-the-world-of-human-waste/) - Its title might seem frivolous, but this book is serious. Rose George favors clarity in her Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste...
- [Movie review: <i>Bisturi: La Mafia Bianca</i>](https://hekint.org/2022/09/26/movie-review-bisturi-la-mafia-bianca/) - Review: Bisturi: La Mafia Bianca (1973) is an understated, well-acted, and critical “doctor movie.” Unlike The Hospital, it is not a black comedy of errors...
- [<i>Doctor Cabbie</i>: No good deed goes unpunished](https://hekint.org/2022/09/19/doctor-cabbie-no-good-deed-goes-unpunished/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “I was bound by an oath that I took.”—Doctor Cabbie Doctor Cabbie (2014) begins with Deepak V. Chopra (played by Vinay Virmani) reciting the Hippocratic Oath along with his graduating class from the University of New Delhi. The face of this newly-minted doctor is glowing with joy. He has fulfilled his own
- [Movie review: <i>Where Does it Hurt?</i>](https://hekint.org/2022/09/08/movie-review-where-does-it-hurt/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “This film is dedicated to the honest, sincere MDs—whose lives are dedicated to the sacred Hippocratic oath. Will these three doctors please stand up?” This dedication sets the tone of Where Does It Hurt? (1972). Unlike the 1971 film The Hospital, in which patients’ lives are jeopardized by inefficiency, incompetence, and insanity,
- [Movie review: <i>Kings Row</i>—Assassins in white coats](https://hekint.org/2022/04/21/movie-review-kings-row-assassins-in-white-coats/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "Above all, I must not play God."—Revised Hippocratic Oath2 Kings Row (1942) is a film set in a small American town in the early nineteen-hundreds. It features two doctors who are best avoided as well as a bright young man called Parris sent by his wealthy grandmother to study medicine in Vienna.
- [Movie review: <i>Pressure Point</i>—Treating the hateful patient](https://hekint.org/2022/03/07/movie-review-pressure-point-treating-the-hateful-patient/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "You sing 'My country 'tis of thee' while they walk all over you."—The patient, Pressure Point Pressure Point (1962) is a "doctor movie" that is "all but unknown to the general public."1 This is unfortunate, since it contains important messages as well as some splendid acting. The story is told as a
- [Movie review: <I>The Hospital</I>, "the wounded madhouse of our times"](https://hekint.org/2022/02/15/movie-review-the-hospital-the-wounded-madhouse-of-our-times/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "Where do you train your nurses, Mrs. Christie, Dachau?"—Dr. Herbert Bock, The Hospital The Hospital (1971) is a devastating satire about American medicine in the second half of the twentieth century. We see the functioning of an inner-city teaching hospital through the eyes of Dr. Herbert Bock (played by George C. Scott),
- [<i>Professor Bernhardi,</i> a play by Arthur Schnitzler, M.D.](https://hekint.org/2022/02/08/professor-bernhardi-a-play-by-arthur-schnitzler-m-d/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "A spiteful something has been fabricated out of an innocent nothing."—Dr. Löwenstein in Professor Bernhardi Professor Bernhardi: A Comedy in Five Acts (1912) is one of seventeen plays written by Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), a Viennese physician who also published two novels and twelve short stories or novellas. He belonged to a non-observant
- [<I>Red Beard</I>: A master clinician in nineteenth century Japan](https://hekint.org/2021/07/30/red-beard-a-master-clinician-in-nineteenth-century-japan/) - Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden "One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient."—Francis W. Peabody, M.D.1 Red Beard (or Akahige) is a film about an arrogant, inexperienced doctor who learns about caring and compassion from his chief, a
- [The Plague of Athens](https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/the-plague-of-athens/) - George Dunea, bubonic plague, infectious diseases, Winter 2012, The Plague of Ashdod, Nicolas Poussin, Hektoen
- [Curing in bureaucracy: Medical professionals and the rise of the US pension system](https://hekint.org/2024/10/24/curing-in-bureaucracy-medical-professionals-and-the-rise-of-the-us-pension-system/) - The rise of the American federal pension system in the wake of the Civil War made doctors responsible for denying or approving veterans’ pension applications.
- [The life and science of Pierre Curie (1859–1906)](https://hekint.org/2024/10/24/the-life-and-science-of-pierre-curie-1859-1906/) - Pierre Curie was a pioneering physicist whose scientific achievements, notably in collaboration with his wife, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, have had a lasting impact on the field of physics. He was born in 1859, having a doctor as his father and a well-educated woman as his mother. He was homeschooled by his father, who introduced him to

## Pages

- [Special Issue: JMS Pearce](https://hekint.org/) - Medical humanities journal — Uniting medicine with culture
- [New Arrivals](https://hekint.org/new-arrivals/) - Articles Articles Vignettes Vignettes
- [Hospitals of Note](https://hekint.org/famous-hospitals/) - Gwen Adshead Broadmoor: 150 years in the life of a secure psychiatric hospital Umut Akova Grady Memorial Hospital Joerg Albrecht The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital of Soweto The Klinikum Aachen Ruri Ashida The Jikei University Hospital, first charity hospital in Japan Carlos Astudillo The Van Buren Hospital in the history of Chile Marco Antonio Ayala-García The
- [Asia](https://hekint.org/asia/) - The Glory of Lebanon Contest Arpan K. Banerjee Kadambini Bose Ganguly—India’s first female physician Book review: Disease and Healing in the Indus Civilisation Prem Chandran G.K. Warrier Anirban Chatterjee Out of the medicine cabinet: An out doctor in a closeted country Neha Chauhan A plastic surgeon’s weeks in lockdown Of honors lost and honor regained:
- [Blood](https://hekint.org/blood/) - Omar Alzarkali Blood and pernicious anemia Romalyn Ante Grit Anne Marie Appelgren Blood on the road Chris Arthur Blood Mnemonics Krishna G. Badami Syndrome de Lasthénie de Ferjol Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: My Years with the British Red Cross Safia Benaissa Karl Landsteiner and the discovery of blood groups Emily Boyle Bad blood: The
- [History Essays](https://hekint.org/history-essays/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Mariam Abdulghani Saved by the spoonful: Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) Rebekah Burgess Abramovich Elizabeth Fleischmann-Aschheim Umut Akova Marfan syndrome and Abraham Lincoln William R. Albury From changelings to extraterrestrials: Depictions of autism in popular culture Historical reflections on cause, responsibility and blame in medicine Jacob Appel The derailment of Franklin Pierce
- [Cardiology](https://hekint.org/cardiology/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J MAS Ahmed and Victoria Turnock The history of the stethoscope Chris Arthur Matters of the heart Carrie Barron Character, genius, and a missing person in medicine Riccardo Benvenuto and Maria Serratto-Benvenuto Saving hearts and art Emily Boyle The heart of Giselle Frank Buchar Heart to heart Joseph Burns and Yehuda Shapir
- [Surgery](https://hekint.org/surgery/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Marissa Armoogam Pain versus survival Cynthia J. Avila The art of surgery: "Surgical theatrics" on the surgeon’s stage Arpan K. Banerjee Samuel Solly—distinguished surgeon and educator William Marsden, surgeon and founder of the Royal Free and Royal Marsden Hospitals, London William Sands Cox—surgeon and founder of the Birmingham Medical School Mahmood
- [Anatomy](https://hekint.org/anatomy/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Wyn Beasley Andreas Vesalius: Wesel to Basel Angela Belli Andreas Vesalius’ audience speaks out Peter H. Berczeller Learning anatomy in medical school Elisabeth Brander Bidloo and Ruysch: Anatomy and art in the 17th century Netherlands Handmaidens of anatomy Richard Brown and Thalia Garvock-de Montbrun Why did Darwin drop out of medical
- [Literary Essays](https://hekint.org/literary-essays/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|Literary Portraits A - J Sama Alreddawi and Barry Meisenberg A poet for a patient: A tenth century poem by al Mutanabbi Lena Arampatzidou Synesthesia in medicine and the humanities Kate Baggott A difficult diagnosis: Humor—how we laugh at doctors Sarah Bahr “Love Tea” and The Antelope Wife Madness and gender in Gregory Doran’s Hamlet
- [Science](https://hekint.org/science/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Rebekah Burgess Abramovich George Bradford Brainerd: Innovator of laryngeal photography Alexander J. Adams Objections to Kuhn’s theory of scientific progression Nater Akpen Keeping corpses company Wladimir Alonso, Steven Zhixiang Zhou, and Cynthia Schuck-Paim The first clinical trial and controlled biological experiments Adriano Angelucci Lights and shadows and Vitamin D Geoffrey Baird
- [Archives](https://hekint.org/archives/) - Past Issues Contest Winners Resources Quotations Letters from Chicago Soundings Past Issues Contest Winners Resources Quotations Letters from Chicago Soundings
- [Uniting Medicine With Culture](https://hekint.org/at-a-glance/) - About Us Contact& Submissions Editorial Board About Us Contact& Submissions Editorial Board
- [Physicians of Note](https://hekint.org/physicians-of-note/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Michael J. Abramson Dr. Monty Perl—Pioneering Australian venereologist Dr. Michael Perl: Uncle Mouse’s war and other stories Robin Agnew Portrait of Sir John Forbes as a young man Mas Ahmed and Anna Payne Frantisek Chvostek, a notable physician Herbert Ausubel A walk with giants Arpan K. Banerjee Richard Mead John Francis
- [Moments in History—Vignettes](https://hekint.org/moments-in-history/) - MAS Ahmed and Natasja Vandepitte The incubator Arpan K. Banerjee The Royal Society of Medicine of London: A brief history József Antall: Hungarian medical historian and political leader Peter H. Berczeller Saul Farber on St. Helena Craig Blackstone The Hogmouths of Habsburg Joseph deBettencourt Stephen Hales: Belief and blood pressure Theo’s marvelous medicine Parnreutai Chaiyasat
- [Food](https://hekint.org/food/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Shannon Adams-Hartung Soul power Lee Andrews Drunk in love: Bodies and consumption in Samson and Delilah Isabel Azevedo Life at the table Fasting: For body and spirit Sarah Bahr A culpable culture: Underlying factors in obesity among Hispanic women Janelle Baker The fern that makes you fat: Access to traditional foods
- [Literary Vignettes](https://hekint.org/literary-vignettes/) - Arpan K. Banerjee John Keats statue Michael Bloor Mikhael Bulgakov’s “The Steel Windpipe” in A Country Doctor’s Notebook Anton Chekhov and the Sakhalin Penal Colony Alan Blum and George Dunea Samuel Vaisrub: An unforgettable editor John B.S. Brooks Greeneland revealed Paul Dakin "Super" heroes: Special powers in deaf characters George Dunea Aphorisms and facetiae of
- [Doctors, Patients, & Diseases](https://hekint.org/doctors-patients-and-diseases/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Moustapha Abousamra Physician, heal thyself Lealani Mae Acosta Good patient, good doctor Beauty in breaking Umut Akova Hulusi Behçet (1889–1948) Andria Albert The man shackled on 4 Northwest Saleh Aldasouqi When the doctor is the patient Heather Lynn Alva Defined spaces Peter Arnold The loneliness of the long-living doctor Mahnoor Ayub
- [Music Box](https://hekint.org/music-box/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Wilfred Niels Arnold Chopin's heart Tyler Beauchamp, Rushay Amarath, and Andy Nguyen Stay inside: A toast to the frontline Jennifer Bingham The lost art and the hidden treasure Willem Blois Medicine, musically Ting-Hsian (Denis) Chen How did deafness affect the creativity of Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827)? Steven Cheng The pianist George
- [Volume 3, Issue 2 – Spring 2011](https://hekint.org/volume-3-issue-2-spring-2011/)
- [Antiquity, Middle Ages, & Islam](https://hekint.org/antiquity/) - Antiquity & the Middle Ages|Islam Antiquity & the Middle Ages Araam Abboud Helen of Troy: A literary and historical consideration of her role as an ancient Egyptian healer Hussain A. Al-Sardar Medicine in ancient Nineveh The first general hospital in Baghdad Burton R. Andersen Comparison of ancient Mesopotamian and Hippocratic medicine Abigail Cline Appler Claudius:
- [Neurology](https://hekint.org/neurology/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Shameemah Abrahams Neurologica – disorders of the dream world MAS Ahmed and Ridhwan Bin Hassan Epilepsy: From the early civilizations to modern days Kelsey N. Andrews and Jack E. Riggs Neurophobia or neuroavoidance: A student or educator issue? Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: How the Mind Changed: A Human History of
- [Volume 13, Issue 4 - Fall 2021](https://hekint.org/volume-13-issue-4-fall-2021/) - Please enjoy this selection of articles for fall. Hektoen International thanks all participants in our recent Grand Prix Essay contest. The winner will be announced in an upcoming issue. Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs Encore
- [Volume 11, Special Issue – Summer 2019](https://hekint.org/special-issue-summer-2019/) - Frontispiece
- [Hektoen Resources](https://hekint.org/hektoen-resources/) - History American Association for the History of Medicine British Society for the History of Medicine Bulletin of the History of Medicine The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and Mutter Museum Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics Disability History Museum Florence Nightingale Museum History of Science Society International Society for the History of Medicine International
- [Illinois Community College Scholarship Essay Contest](https://hekint.org/illinois-community-college-scholarship-essay-contest/) - The Hektoen Institute proudly sponsors a scholarship contest awarding $5,000 in tuition support each to three students attending community college in Illinois. To enter the contest, students must compose an essay between 500–1,500 words on any topic stimulated by their reading of Hektoen International (hekint.org), the online journal embracing the intersection of art, literature, history, philosophy, nursing, religion,
- [Psychiatry & Psychology](https://hekint.org/psychiatry-psychology/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Umut Akova The enigma of mass psychogenic phenomena Renato Alarcón Honorio Delgado: A Latin-American psychiatrist, citizen of the world Rachel Baer The poetics of the body Kate Baggott A love-driven model of suicide prevention Clayton Baker “Hills Like White Elephants” and the collusion of non-communication Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: A
- [Past Issues](https://hekint.org/past-issues/) - Volume 18 Winter 2026 Volume 17 Winter 2025 Spring 2025 Summer 2025 Fall 2025 Volume 16 Winter 2024 Spring 2024 Summer 2024 Fall 2024 Volume 15 Winter 2023 Spring 2023 Summer 2023 Fall 2023 Volume 14 Winter 2022 Spring 2022 Summer 2022 Fall 2022 Volume 13 Winter 2021 Spring 2021 Summer 2021 Fall 2021 Special
- [Volume 17, Issue 4 – Fall 2025](https://hekint.org/volume-17-issue-4-fall-2025/) - Kings and queens in history Great English language literature Edward Gibbon Sir Thomas Browne Jonathan Swift George Eliot Tobias Smollett Henry Fielding Lord Byron Charlotte Bronte Thomas De Quincey Elisabeth Gaskell Charles Dickens John Keats Robert Louis Stevenson Herman Melville Edgar Allen Poe Henry Thoreau Rudyard Kipling Conan Doyle Virginia Woolf Oscar Wilde
- [Women in Medicine](https://hekint.org/women-in-medicine/) - Moustapha Abousamra Women surgeons Victoria Bates Elizabeth Casson Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: A History of Women in Medicine and Medical Research Book review: Meeting the Challenge: Top Women in Science Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán Katherine Anne Porter and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic Bojana Cokić Women in medicine in Serbia Elizabeth A. Coon and Eelco F. M.
- [War & Veterans](https://hekint.org/war-veterans/) - Anonymous A battered soul rebels Abigail Cline Appler Put a helmet on your privates because they’re going to see some action: The history of condoms in the military Sarah Bahr Union or Confederate, American Women Played Crucial Roles in the Civil War Effort Alexander Baldwin Archibald McIndoe’s stance against the clinical hospital archetype and the
- [Travel & Gardens](https://hekint.org/travel/) - Eric Breitbart La Maison: A palliative care center in France Joan Callahan A pilgrim’s poems from the heart George Dunea Stendhal syndrome, a hazard of tourism A visit to New York: A wonderful town Dead Sea: Health claims and tourist delights Notes made after a medical meeting in Rhodes a long time ago David Gullette
- [Poetry](https://hekint.org/poetry/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z A - J Steve Ablon The African Savannah Biplab Adhikari The silent struggles of a healer Sarah Alam Emptiness L.N. Allen Beech Leaves Eden Almasude Scotch Pathology Anonymous Medical limericks Jacob M. Appel New Year’s Eve, Old Presbyterian Hospital Death notices Tending Babe Ruth's grave Hope Atlas Me, my father, and the angels Glen
- [Personal Narratives](https://hekint.org/personal-narratives/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Bebeyi Grace Abiodun Self-esteem and skin diseases Yara Abukhaled The silence between us Susan Anderson Waiting for results Ashley Austin Win or lose Niyi Awofeso Disciplinary architecture: Prison design and prisoners’ health Kate Baggott How to treat a broken heart: An instruction guide Aaron Berkowitz The disease you do not see
- [Nephrology and Hypertension](https://hekint.org/nephrology/) - Rabie E. Abdel-Halim Lithotripsy: A historical review Andrew Bomback Nephrology in 10 Steps Laura Carreras-Planella, Marcella Franquesa, Ricardo Lauzurica, and Francesc E. Borràs A brief history of kidney transplantation Joseph deBettencourt Korotkov’s Sound George Dunea History of nephrology: Beginnings History of nephrology: The middle period History of nephrology: Modern era Domenico Cotugno (1736–1822) Dr. Willem
- [Infectious Disease](https://hekint.org/infectious-disease/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Diego Andrade and Stalin Santiago CeliQuinine and global health Juan–Carlos ArgüellesThe early days of the Nobel Prize and Golden Age of Microbiology Patrick AshinzeLassa: The small town with the mark of death Arpan K. BanerjeeBook review: Pandemic Obsession: How They Feature in our Popular CultureBook review: Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and
- [Gallery](https://hekint.org/gallery/) - Kyle Amber The Triple A Simrand Anand The Living Text FALL '25 Miriam Ancis EKG Glen P. Aylward Parkinson’s The Siege Margaret Irene Baczewski Possessions Rachel Baker Marc Chagall brings a message of hope and faith to the disabled Gerda Meyer Bernstein River, 2005 - Installation by Gerda Meyer Bernstein Alan Blum Gentle men Ladies
- [Ethics](https://hekint.org/ethics/) - Erik D. Anderson Dr. David Hartley and the benevolent AI Joshua Baru and Benjamin Mba A life cut short Mitchell Batavia Five ethics cartoons FALL '25 Jonathan Bean, David Ng, Hakan Demirtas, and Patrick Guinan Medical students' attitudes toward torture Tyler Beauchamp Faith in medicine Justin M. Le Blanc Medical Autonomy and Vaccines: A Kantian
- [End of Life](https://hekint.org/end-of-life/) - Lealani Acosta Unfettered grief Julia Angkeow The unsung heroes Agnieszka A. Ardelt Raison d'être Katherine Arnup And a time to die Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality Kathleen Blanchfield The spiritual dimension of facilitating advance directives planning: The congregational setting as a vital
- [Education](https://hekint.org/education/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Alexandra Adams The missing chapter in our curriculum Morgan Alexander Scars Sara Ali Medical education in medieval Islam Amira Athanasios Defining medicine Henry Bair A quiet night Arpan K. Banerjee India’s oldest medical schools Samantha Below The time between our hands Pamela Brett-MacLean, Michelle Casavant, Shirley Serviss, and Alyssa Cruz Shadowing
- [Books & Reviews](https://hekint.org/books-reviews/) - Fizzah Ali The creation of Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois: A biographical psychotic neurotic Emily Atashkari Depression in Little Miss Sunshine Sara Baker The truth in facts is a derelict ruin: Forging a self through fiction Arpan K. Banerjee Cinema MD: A History of Medicine on Screen Literatim: Essays at the intersections of medicine and culture
- [Birth, Pregnancy, & Obstetrics](https://hekint.org/birth-pregnancy-obstetrics/) - C. Anthony Ryan et al. A letter from George Boole and Victorian attitudes towards pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding Rachel Baker Birth trays in the Italian Renaissance Arpan K. Banerjee Ian Donald: Ultrasound pioneer Mariam Banoub, Matthew Hill, and Julius P. Bonello Childbirth’s hidden revolution: The origins of obstetric forceps Julius P. Bonello and Ajoke Maryam
- [Art Essays](https://hekint.org/art-essays/) - Zohaib AhmadThe perfection of illness William R. Albury and George M. WeiszHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec and medicine: A triumph over infirmityThe model for Albrecht Dürer’s Praying Hands Glenn ArendtsFalls and art: An evolving story Niyi Awofeso and Anu RammohanKindred paradigms: Community arts and health advocacy in HIV/AIDS activism Sarah BahrMedical deafness or the madness of war:
- [Anthropology](https://hekint.org/anthropology/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Layla A. Al-Jailani Obstetrical fistula: A malady hidden by shame Alexandros Argyriadis and Agathi Argyriadi Female Genital Mutilation: Cultural practices, historical moments, and medical issues Maria Barn Dead people healing alcoholism Mitchell Batavia Wheeled chairs throughout the ages FALL '25 Alan Blum and Kevin Bailey What a newspaper advice columnist had
- [Africa](https://hekint.org/africa/) - Shameemah Abrahams Christiaan Barnard Joerg Albrecht The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital of Soweto Chris Bird Abandon Sara Buck Of starlit huts and Sahelian sand Nathan Cannon Beyond the scope Enrique Chaves-Carballo Origin of yellow fever Emeka Chibuikem V. The mysterious Red Cross boy The man who hated hospital Ohakpougwu Chukwuebuka Emmanuel The lost papyrus? Eureka!
- [Chicago Medicine](https://hekint.org/chicago-medicine/) - Foxglove Alliance - A Chicago Healthcare Coalition Michael Reese Archive The rise and death of Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital Michael Reese Hospital - beginnings Michael Reese Hospital - nurses, interns, and residents Michael Reese Hospital - neighborhood and patients Michael Reese Hospital - physicians Michael Reese Hospital - pediatrics Michael Reese Archive: comments from our
- [Vignettes at Large](https://hekint.org/vignettes-at-large/) - Remi Alli Medical marijuana, caregivers, and jail time Peter Arnold No complaints, only symptoms Why do physicians write so badly? A circle of hip surgery around four continents Arpan K. Banerjee The mythology of the Sun Fountain in Nice, France George Dunea On eating the heart of the Sun King, Louis XIV Soap and bathing
- [Art Flashes & Vignettes](https://hekint.org/art-flashes/) - Arpan K. Banerjee The Trinity Plague Column in Budapest Bernard Brabin Unlocking the secrets of a bohemian painting Bojana Cokić Reflections on medicine and art Obesity and art Down syndrome through the centuries in art The art of breastfeeding Child’s play and art Habsburg dynasty and progenia Pregnancy and art Vincent P. De Luise Beauty
- [Winter 2026 Issue (Dr. Pearce)](https://hekint.org/winter-2026-issue-dr-pearce/) - Volume 18, Issue 1 – Winter 2026 ISSN 2155-3017 In this issue, we remember the life and work of Dr. John Michael Schofield Pearce (1936–2025). A prolific author and contributor to our journal since its second year of publication, Dr. Pearce published over 200 articles with us over the course of 15 years. A select
- [Darwin Issue Mockup (Spring 2026)](https://hekint.org/winter-2026-mockup/) - Volume 18, Issue 2 – Spring 2026 ISSN 2155-3017 Darwin Physicians of note Caleb Parry Herman Boerhave Robert Liston Benjamin Rush Nils von Rosenstein John Chamber Sir Theodore de Mayerne Joseph Bell Henrik Sjogren Sir George Frederick Still Carl von Rokitansky Philippe Gaucher Pierre Bretonneau Thomas Linacre Thomas Young Thomas Sydenham Sir William Duke-Elder Samuel
- [Contact & Submission Instructions](https://hekint.org/submission-instructions/) - For general inquiries: info@hektoeninternational.orgFor submissions: journal@hektoeninternational.org or use the submission form belowFollow Hektoen International on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads, and sign up to receive weekly updates and highlights in your email. Please read the instructions carefully before submitting your work for publication.We have many articles on medical history, so please search
- [Winners and Runners-Up of Hektoen Contests](https://hekint.org/hektoen-legion-of-honor/) - 2025 Illinois Community College Scholarship Essay Contest Haftom Amha, Harry S. Truman CollegeValeria Cancino, Malcolm X CollegeJamarius Ducker, Kennedy-King College 2024–25 Nurse Essay Contest Karen J. Egenes, Winner: Alice Fisher: A Nightingale in PhiladelphiaSandra E. Gaynor, Runner-Up: Invitation to tea 2022–23 Medical Student Essay Contest Shannon Adams-Hartung, Winner: Soul powerVidhi Naik, Runner-Up: From silks to
- [Volume 17, Issue 3 – Summer 2025](https://hekint.org/volume-17-issue-3-summer-2025/) - Leprosy—Hansen's disease Infectious diseases Measles Scarlet Fever Smallpox Bartolenosis Brucellosis Polio Cholera Kala Azar Dengue Syphilis Typhoid ulcers Ebola Leprosy Plague Diptheria Kuru Malaria Yellow Fever
- [Nursing](https://hekint.org/nursing/) - A-J|K-P|R-Z|VIGNETTES A - J Arpan K. Banerjee Book review: Ethel Gordon Fenwick: Nursing Reformer and the First Registered Nurse Book review: The Woman Who Revolutionised Nurses’ Training: The Life and Career of Rebecca Strong Book review: Florence Nightingale’s Rivals: Nursing Through the Crimea Carol Battaglia To Nurse - Hospital Halls - Breath - and more
- [Fiction](https://hekint.org/fiction/) - Zara Aziz Three doctor’s visits Richard Bentley Up north David Blitzer Business as usual Susan Woldenberg Butler Blind faith Those eyes When children die Sam Campbell and Moh’D Ibrahim How to save a life Tim Chapman Fish story Melanie Cheng Dear Doctor Joel L. Chinitz The Gone-A-Gram There is a time Henri Colt The deer
- [Covid-19](https://hekint.org/covid-19-2/) - Saira Elizabeth Alex The pandemic: A medical student’s perspective Arpan K. Banerjee Book Review of Intensive Care: A GP, A Community and COVID-19 Review: The History of the World in 100 pandemics, plagues and epidemics Patrick Bell Ancient Greek plague and coronavirus Cristóbal S. Berry-Cabán Katherine Anne Porter and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic Brian Birch COVID-19 and
- [Quotations by Hektorama](https://hekint.org/quotations/) - Medical Doctors and Patients If your doctor does not think it good for you to sleep, to take wine or some particular meat, do not worry; I will find you another who will disagree with him. - Montaigne (1580) The Balbec doctor, called in to cope with a sudden feverish attack, gave the opinion that
- [About Us](https://hekint.org/about-us/) - Since 2008, the Hektoen International journal of medical humanities has enriched healthcare professionals through cultural topics: literature, art, history...
- [Sections](https://hekint.org/sections/) - Africa Anatomy Anthropology Antiquity, Middle Ages, & Islam Art Essays Asia [incl. India & Lebanon] Birth, Pregnancy, & Obstetrics Blood Books & Reviews Cardiology Chicago Medicine Covid-19 Doctors, Patients, & Diseases Education End of Life Ethics Fiction Food Gallery History Essays Hospitals of Note Infectious Disease Literary Essays Music Box Nephrology Neurology Nursing Personal Narratives
- [Volume 17, Issue 2 – Spring 2025](https://hekint.org/volume-17-issue-2-spring-2025/) - Science pioneers Famous scientists Paul Ehrlich Charles Darwin William Beaumont Alfred Russel Wallace Ernest Starling Thomas Huxley Van Leeuwenhoek Giovanni Borelli Johannes Purkinje John Dalton Dorothy Hodgkin Kathleen Lonsdale Albrecht von Haller Carl Ludwig Ramon y Cajal Jean Marie Poiseuille Claude Bernard Antoine Lavoisier Albert Einstein Santorio Santorio
- [Volume 13, Issue 3 – Summer 2021](https://hekint.org/volume-13-issue-3-summer-2021/) - We invite you to participate in the 2021 Hektoen Essay Competition honoring board member Mrs. Hella Mannheimer (1924–2020). Two prizes will be awarded: $5,000 for the winner and $2,500 for runner-up. Essays should be under 1,500 words. Deadline is September 15 at 12 pm (noon) CST. View guidelines here. Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs
- [Volume 17, Issue 1 – Winter 2025](https://hekint.org/volume-17-issue-1-winter-2025/) - Alice Fisher: A Nightingale in Philadelphia by Karen J. Egenes is the winner of our 2024–25 Nurse Essay Contest!Our runner-up is Invitation to tea by Sandra E. Gaynor.Thank you to all who participated! Matters of the heart Medicine in Scotland Glasgow Royal Infirmary Edinburgh Royal Infirmary Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Craiglockhart War Hospital The Monros
- [Grand Prix Submission Guidelines](https://hekint.org/grand-prix-submission-guidelines/) - (Currently closed) We invite you to participate in the Seventh Hektoen Grand Prix Essay Competition. Two prizes will be awarded: $3000 for the winner and $800 for the runner up. Topics might include art, history, literature, education, etc. as they relate to medicine. Essays should be under 1600 words. The deadline is April 15, 2019 at
- [Guidelines for the 2021 Hektoen Grand Prix Essay Competition](https://hekint.org/guidelines-for-the-2021-hektoen-grand-prix-essay-competition/) - THE HEKTOEN INTERNATIONAL 2021 GRAND PRIX CLOSED SEPTEMBER 15th, 2021 AT 12PM (NOON). We invite you to participate in the 2021 Hektoen Grand Prix Essay Competition in honor of Hektoen Institute Board Member Mrs. Hella Mannheimer (1924-2020). Two prizes will be awarded: $5,000 for the winner and $2,500 for the runner-up. Please read the instructions
- [Guidelines for the 2022 Medical Student Essay Contest](https://hekint.org/guidelines-for-the-2022-medical-student-essay-contest/) - Students currently enrolled in a medical school or program are encouraged to submit to Hektoen International’s 2022 Medical Student Essay Contest. Submissions will be reviewed by the Hektoen International Editorial Staff and a select group of contest judges who will determine the two winners of the following awards: Grand Prize: Single winner of $3,500 Runner-Up:
- [Volume 12, Issue 4 – Fall 2020](https://hekint.org/volume-12-issue-4-fall-2020/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs
- [Volume 12, Issue 3 – Summer 2020](https://hekint.org/volume-12-issue-3-summer-2020/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 13 Special Issue - Fall 2021](https://hekint.org/volume-13-special-issue-fall-2021/) - Hektoen International is pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 Grand Prix Essay Competition.Winner: C. Louis Leipoldt: The polymath physician and literary giant, Stephen Marcus FinnRunner-Up: “Plague of the Sea, and the Spoyle of Mariners”—A brief history of fermented cabbage as antiscorbutic, Richard de Grijs Honorable Mentions
- [Hektoen Editorial Board](https://hekint.org/editorial-board/) - Editorial staff George Dunea, MD, Editor-in-Chief Sally Metzler, PhD, Deputy Editor Elizabeth Ruda, Assistant Editor US editorial/advisory board Joerg Albrecht, MD, Stroger Hospital of Cook County Asad Bakir, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine Kenneth G. Busch, MD, DFAPA, Psychiatrist, Private Practice William H. Chamberlin, MD, President, Michael Reese Research and Education
- [Guidelines for the 2024–25 Nurse Essay Contest](https://hekint.org/guidelines-for-the-2024-25-nurse-essay-contest/) - This contest is now closed. Thank you to all who participated!Winners can be found here. Nurses, nurses’ aides, and nursing and midwifery students are encouraged to submit an essay to Hektoen International’s 2024–2025 nurse writing contest. Submissions will be initially reviewed by the Hektoen International Editorial Staff, followed by a panel of nursing professionals, who
- [Volume 16, Issue 4 – Fall 2024](https://hekint.org/volume-16-issue-4-fall-2024/) - The times of Napoleon Hektorama Feature: Hospital Grand Tour Montreal Neurological Montreal Children’s Dublin St. Patrick’s Dublin Meath Leeds London St. Bartholomew’s London St. Mary’s Royal London Paris Beaune Copenhagen Moscow Berlin Aachen Heidelberg Padua Ferrara Malta Cape Town Soweto Lambarene Qatar Baghdad Karachi Vellore Hong Kong Korea Sydney Hospital Sydney Royal Prince Alfred Our
- [Volume 16, Issue 3 – Summer 2024](https://hekint.org/volume-16-issue-3-summer-2024/) - All about Mozart Hektorama Feature: History of Anatomy Andreas Vesalius Antonio Scarpa Gabriele Falloppio Giovanni Batista Mogani Marcello Malpighi Juan Valverde de Amusco Hieronymus Fabricius Bartolomeo Eustachio Galen of Pergamon Antonio Valsalva Berengario de Carpi Vidus Vidius Johann Conrad Brunner Adrianus Spigelius Henry Gray Costanzo Varolio Antonio Benivieni Gerard Blasius Julius Caesar Aranzi Mondino de’
- [Volume 16, Issue 2 – Spring 2024](https://hekint.org/volume-16-issue-2-spring-2024/) - The best of Charles Dickens The city of Padua Women pioneers Hektorama Feature: United States Hospitals Michael Reese Hospital Bellevue Hospitals Freedmen’s Hospital Washington D.C. Johns Hopkins Hospital Maynard-Columbus Hospital, Nome, Alaska Provident Hospital, Chicago Rush Medical College, Chicago Roosevelt Hospital, New York Old Cook County Hospital Walter Reed Army Medical Center Harborview Hospital, Seattle
- [Volume 16, Issue 1 – Winter 2024](https://hekint.org/volume-16-issue-1-winter-2024/) - Frontispiece Vignettes Encore Hektorama Feature: History of Medicine The death of Charles II Ambroise Pare on the battlefield Healthcare for the Popes The Sun King and his ailments Lorenzo the Magnificent King Henry VIII: more ailments than wives The death of George II The Emperor and his physicians The last illness of Edward VI Mary
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- [Volume 15, Issue 4 – Fall 2023](https://hekint.org/volume-15-issue-4-fall-2023/) - Frontispiece Vignettes Encore Hektorama Feature: Art in Medicine Bronzino and the wages of sin Distorting anatomy The Crucifixion of Christ A painting for services rendered? Kleptomania Margaret of Austria A fashionable physician The bitter potion Portrait of a physician Model for an artist Portrait of a surgeon Madonna and Child
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- [Volume 4, Issue 4 – Fall 2012](https://hekint.org/volume-4-issue-4-fall-2012/) - Frontispiece
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- [Volume 6, Issue 3 – Summer 2014](https://hekint.org/volume-6-issue-3-summer-2014/) - Frontispiece
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- [Volume 7, Issue 1 – Winter 2015](https://hekint.org/volume-7-issue-1-winter-2015/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 7, Issue 3 – Summer 2015](https://hekint.org/volume-7-issue-3-summer-2015/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 7, Issue 2 – Spring 2015](https://hekint.org/volume-7-issue-2-spring-2015/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 7, Issue 4 – Fall 2015](https://hekint.org/volume-7-issue-4-fall-2015/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 8, Issue 1 – Winter 2016](https://hekint.org/volume-8-issue-1-winter-2016/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 8, Issue 2 – Spring 2016](https://hekint.org/volume-8-issue-2-spring-2016/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 8, Issue 3 – Summer 2016](https://hekint.org/volume-8-issue-3-summer-2016/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 8, Issue 4 – Fall 2016](https://hekint.org/volume-8-issue-4-winter-2016/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 8, Special Issue – Summer 2016](https://hekint.org/summer-2016-special-issue/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 9, Issue 1 – Winter 2017](https://hekint.org/volume-9-issue-1-winter-2017/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 9, Issue 2 – Spring 2017](https://hekint.org/volume-9-issue-2-spring-2017/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 9, Issue 3 – Summer 2017](https://hekint.org/volume-9-issue-3-summer-2017/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 9, Issue 4 – Fall 2017](https://hekint.org/volume-9-issue-4-fall-2017/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 10, Issue 1 – Winter 2018](https://hekint.org/volume-10-issue-1-winter-2018/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 10, Issue 2 – Spring 2018](https://hekint.org/volume-10-issue-2-spring-2018/) - Frontispiece Winners of the 2018 Summer Writing ContestTales from the crypt: the mosaic symbolism of Louis Pasteur’s tomb, by Dr. Abigail ClineThe education of Doctor Chekhov, by Dr. Jack Coulehan"Mississsippi Appendectomy" and other stories: when silence is complicity, by Dr. Alida Rol
- [Volume 10, Issue 3 – Summer 2018](https://hekint.org/volume-10-issue-3-summer-2018/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 10, Issue 4 – Fall 2018](https://hekint.org/volume-10-issue-4-fall-2018/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 11, Issue 1 – Winter 2019](https://hekint.org/volume-11-issue-1-winter-2019/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 11, Issue 2 – Spring 2019](https://hekint.org/volume-11-issue-2-spring-2019/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 11, Issue 3 – Summer 2019](https://hekint.org/volume-11-issue-3-summer-2019/) - Winners of the 2019 Writing ContestWinner: Character, genius, and a missing person in medicine, Carrie BarronRunner-up: The promise of a perfect smile, Liz Jones Frontispiece
- [Volume 11, Issue 4 – Fall 2019](https://hekint.org/volume-11-issue-4/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 12, Issue 1 - Winter 2020](https://hekint.org/volume-12-issue-1/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 12, Issue 2 - Spring 2020](https://hekint.org/volume-12-issue-2/) - Frontispiece
- [Volume 13, Issue 1 - Winter 2021](https://hekint.org/volume-13-issue-1/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs
- [Volume 13, Issue 2 - Spring 2021](https://hekint.org/volume-13-issue-2/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs
- [Volume 14, Issue 1 - Winter 2022](https://hekint.org/volume-14-issue-1/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs, old and new Encore
- [Volume 14, Issue 2 - Spring 2022](https://hekint.org/volume-14-issue-2/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs, old and new Encore Editor's Choice 2021–2022
- [Volume 14, Issue 3 - Summer 2022](https://hekint.org/volume-14-issue-3/) - Frontispiece Vignettes and briefs, old and new Encore Hektorama Topics Personages Rambles
- [Volume 14, Issue 4 – Fall 2022](https://hekint.org/volume-14-issue-4-fall-2022/) - Frontispiece Encore
- [Volume 15, Issue 3 – Summer 2023](https://hekint.org/volume-15-issue-3-summer-2023/) - Frontispiece Vignettes Encore
- [Volume 15, Issue 2 – Spring 2023](https://hekint.org/volume-15-issue-2-spring-2023/) - Hektoen International is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022-23 Medical Student Essay Contest.Winner: Soul power, Shannon-Adams HartungRunner-Up: From silks to science: The history of hematoxylin and eosin staining, Vidhi NaikThank you to all who participated! Frontispiece Vignettes Encore
- [Volume 15, Issue 1 – Winter 2023](https://hekint.org/volume-15-issue-1-winter-2023/) - Frontispiece Vignettes Encore
- [Hektorama Rambles](https://hekint.org/hektorama-rambles/) - Hospital Grand Tour Montreal Neurological Montreal Children’s Dublin St. Patrick’s Dublin Meath Leeds London St. Bartholomew’s London St. Mary’s Royal London Paris Beaune Copenhagen Moscow Berlin Aachen Heidelberg Padua Ferrara Malta Cape Town Soweto Lambarene Qatar Baghdad Karachi Vellore Hong Kong Korea Sydney Hospital Sydney Royal Prince Alfred United States Hospitals Michael Reese Hospital
- [Personages](https://hekint.org/personages/) - Prominent Surgeons James Syme Percival Pott Robert Liston Thomas Dent Mutter William Halsted Sir James Paget Fabricius Hildanus Dominique Jean Larrey William Cheselden Sir Astley Cooper Lord Moynihan Christiaan Barnard Lord Lister Gaspare Tagliacozzi Emil Theodor Kocher Albucasis Harvey Cushing Ferdinand Sauerbruch Percival Pott Theodor Billroth Physicians of Note Caleb Parry Herman Boerhave Robert
- [Hektorama Topics](https://hekint.org/hektorama/) - Great English Language Literature Edward Gibbon Sir Thomas Browne Jonathan Swift George Eliot Tobias Smollett Henry Fielding Lord Byron Charlotte Bronte Thomas De Quincey Elisabeth Gaskell Charles Dickens John Keats Robert Louis Stevenson Herman Melville Edgar Allen Poe Henry Thoreau Rudyard Kipling Conan Doyle Virginia Woolf Oscar Wilde Art in Medicine Bronzino and the
- [Soundings [1991–2006]](https://hekint.org/soundings/) - George Dunea NonsenserinePerfumeLawyers and doctorsFlying down underBurning down their housesAt nightFallibilityClosing the hospitalsLeft handsRelative values arriveSurrogates: speaking for patients helps doctorsDrug ethicsBreast implants: silicone cash cowHistory of food: thinking of LucyClouds in intensive careReforming health care: calling for Mr. YeltsinTracking medical devicesThinking the unthinkable: rationing and assisted suicideFrom millimoles to MaastrichtDoctors from abroadInformed consumersImpasseThe homelessKillers
- [Letters from Chicago [1975–1991]](https://hekint.org/letters-from-chicago/) - George Dunea Malpractice and the state of the nationForeign VisitorsConfrontationsPyramids and primary careDrug censorshipOf great placeYear of the rabbitDeath with dignityNew livers for oldPoikilodokia simplex:a paramarmaladosisElection yearFarewell Atlantic CityTrichology needs helpButtering opsoninsYear of the DragonReturn of the hangmanPrimary health-care crisesSweet and sour pillsShopping-bag syndromeThe joy of wife-beatingJet lag scienceTutamaniaWar gamesTurning back the hands of timeSetback
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## Tags

- [Music Box](https://hekint.org/tag/music-box/)
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- [Michael Reese Archive](https://hekint.org/tag/michael-reese-archive/)
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- [India](https://hekint.org/tag/india/)
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- [Spain](https://hekint.org/tag/spain/)
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- [Russia](https://hekint.org/tag/russia/)
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- [Johns Hopkins](https://hekint.org/tag/johns-hopkins/)
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- [Yanglu Chen](https://hekint.org/tag/yanglu-chen/)
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- [Joel T. Katz](https://hekint.org/tag/joel-t-katz/)
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- [Angharad Fletcher](https://hekint.org/tag/angharad-fletcher/)
- [China](https://hekint.org/tag/china/)
- [Moments in History](https://hekint.org/tag/moments-in-history/)
- [Giuseppe Mascia](https://hekint.org/tag/giuseppe-mascia/)
- [Susan Jacob](https://hekint.org/tag/susan-jacob/)
- [Education](https://hekint.org/tag/education/)
- [Fergus Shanahan](https://hekint.org/tag/fergus-shanahan/)
- [Winter 2014](https://hekint.org/tag/winter-2014/)
- [Isabel Azevedo](https://hekint.org/tag/isabel-azevedo/)
- [Farrah Bui](https://hekint.org/tag/farrah-bui/)
- [Kenneth Michael Felsenstein](https://hekint.org/tag/kenneth-michael-felsenstein/)
- [C. ANthony Ryan](https://hekint.org/tag/c-anthony-ryan/)
- [Bridget Maher](https://hekint.org/tag/bridget-maher/)
- [Fiction](https://hekint.org/tag/fiction/)
- [Larry Zaroff](https://hekint.org/tag/larry-zaroff/)
- [Poetry](https://hekint.org/tag/poetry/)
- [John Vanek](https://hekint.org/tag/john-vanek/)
- [Catalina Florina Florescu](https://hekint.org/tag/catalina-florina-florescu/)
- [Pekka Louhiala](https://hekint.org/tag/pekka-louhiala/)
- [Raimo Puustinen](https://hekint.org/tag/raimo-puustinen/)
- [Summer 2013](https://hekint.org/tag/summer-2013/)
- [Angela Belli](https://hekint.org/tag/angela-belli/)
- [Kathleen Coggshall](https://hekint.org/tag/kathleen-coggshall/)
- [Sylvia Plath](https://hekint.org/tag/sylvia-plath/)
- [Roslyn Weaver](https://hekint.org/tag/roslyn-weaver/)
- [Nam Nguyen](https://hekint.org/tag/nam-nguyen/)
- [Laura Fitzpatrick](https://hekint.org/tag/laura-fitzpatrick/)
- [Jeanne Bryner](https://hekint.org/tag/jeanne-bryner/)
- [Mary A. Osborne](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-a-osborne/)
- [Alchemy's Daughter](https://hekint.org/tag/alchemys-daughter/)
- [Summer 2012](https://hekint.org/tag/summer-2012/)
- [Emily Dickinson](https://hekint.org/tag/emily-dickinson/)
- [Bonnie Salomon](https://hekint.org/tag/bonnie-salomon/)
- [Mahala Yates Stripling](https://hekint.org/tag/mahala-yates-stripling/)
- [Richard Selzer](https://hekint.org/tag/richard-selzer/)
- [Bill Wolak](https://hekint.org/tag/bill-wolak/)
- [Dileep Jhaveri](https://hekint.org/tag/dileep-jhaveri/)
- [Literary Quiz](https://hekint.org/tag/literary-quiz/)
- [Spring 2012](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2012/)
- [Mike Ellman](https://hekint.org/tag/mike-ellman/)
- [Anna Lantz](https://hekint.org/tag/anna-lantz/)
- [Antiquity](https://hekint.org/tag/antiquity/)
- [Emmanuel Ugokwe](https://hekint.org/tag/emmanuel-ugokwe/)
- [Plato](https://hekint.org/tag/plato/)
- [slaves](https://hekint.org/tag/slaves/)
- [Winter 2012](https://hekint.org/tag/winter-2012/)
- [Past Issues](https://hekint.org/tag/past-issues/)
- [Glenn Webb](https://hekint.org/tag/glenn-webb/)
- [Jim Gustafson](https://hekint.org/tag/jim-gustafson/)
- [Fall 2011](https://hekint.org/tag/fall-2011/)
- [Jeconda Harris](https://hekint.org/tag/jeconda-harris/)
- [David Thoele](https://hekint.org/tag/david-thoele/)
- [Spring 2011](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2011/)
- [Jessica Harder](https://hekint.org/tag/jessica-harder/)
- [Winter 2011](https://hekint.org/tag/winter-2011/)
- [Spring 2010](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2010/)
- [Joannie Stangeland](https://hekint.org/tag/joannie-stangeland/)
- [Johanna Shapiro](https://hekint.org/tag/johanna-shapiro/)
- [Jean-Pol Grandmont](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-pol-grandmont/)
- [Fall 2010](https://hekint.org/tag/fall-2010/)
- [answers](https://hekint.org/tag/answers/)
- [Ellen Jantzen](https://hekint.org/tag/ellen-jantzen/)
- [Art Essays](https://hekint.org/tag/art-essays/)
- [Katrina Genuis](https://hekint.org/tag/katrina-genuis/)
- [Liverpool](https://hekint.org/tag/liverpool/)
- [Fall 2016](https://hekint.org/tag/fall-2016/)
- [Alexandra Adams](https://hekint.org/tag/alexandra-adams/)
- [Philippe Campillo](https://hekint.org/tag/philippe-campillo/)
- [Science](https://hekint.org/tag/science/)
- [Spring 2017](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2017/)
- [Support Players](https://hekint.org/tag/support-players/)
- [Moritz Romberg](https://hekint.org/tag/moritz-romberg/)
- [Trevor Klee](https://hekint.org/tag/trevor-klee/)
- [suicide](https://hekint.org/tag/suicide/)
- [Willem J. Kolff](https://hekint.org/tag/willem-j-kolff/)
- [nephrology](https://hekint.org/tag/nephrology/)
- [Art Flashes](https://hekint.org/tag/art-flashes/)
- [Joshua Reynolds](https://hekint.org/tag/joshua-reynolds/)
- [Conrad von Soest](https://hekint.org/tag/conrad-von-soest/)
- [Christina Lee](https://hekint.org/tag/christina-lee/)
- [Books & Reviews](https://hekint.org/tag/books-reviews/)
- [The Mill on the Floss](https://hekint.org/tag/the-mill-on-the-floss/)
- [George Eliot](https://hekint.org/tag/george-eliot/)
- [Sooo-z Mastropietro](https://hekint.org/tag/sooo-z-mastropietro/)
- [Rebecca Skloot](https://hekint.org/tag/rebecca-skloot/)
- [The Way of the Flesh](https://hekint.org/tag/the-way-of-the-flesh/)
- [Noam Zeffren](https://hekint.org/tag/noam-zeffren/)
- [Tova Chein](https://hekint.org/tag/tova-chein/)
- [Robert Stern](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-stern/)
- [Infectious Diseases](https://hekint.org/tag/infectious-diseases/)
- [The Black Plague](https://hekint.org/tag/the-black-plague/)
- [Salvatore Barbuti](https://hekint.org/tag/salvatore-barbuti/)
- [Domenico Martinelli](https://hekint.org/tag/domenico-martinelli/)
- [Rosa Prato](https://hekint.org/tag/rosa-prato/)
- [cholera](https://hekint.org/tag/cholera/)
- [Richard de Grijs](https://hekint.org/tag/richard-de-grijs/)
- [Daniel Vuillermin](https://hekint.org/tag/daniel-vuillermin/)
- [Pulsilogium](https://hekint.org/tag/pulsilogium/)
- [Jesse William Lazear](https://hekint.org/tag/jesse-william-lazear/)
- [Harishnath Ramachandran](https://hekint.org/tag/harishnath-ramachandran/)
- [Mozart](https://hekint.org/tag/mozart/)
- [Rayda Aaishah Joomun](https://hekint.org/tag/rayda-aaishah-joomun/)
- [Aneesa Bodiat](https://hekint.org/tag/aneesa-bodiat/)
- [Personal Narratives](https://hekint.org/tag/personal-narratives/)
- [Mara Buck](https://hekint.org/tag/mara-buck/)
- [Susan Anderson](https://hekint.org/tag/susan-anderson/)
- [Kevin E. Loughlin](https://hekint.org/tag/kevin-e-loughlin/)
- [David Hume](https://hekint.org/tag/david-hume/)
- [vaccines](https://hekint.org/tag/vaccines/)
- [Andrew Bombeck](https://hekint.org/tag/andrew-bombeck/)
- [EUla BIss](https://hekint.org/tag/eula-biss/)
- [Cplumbia University Medical Center](https://hekint.org/tag/cplumbia-university-medical-center/)
- [Comsalud](https://hekint.org/tag/comsalud/)
- [Andreas Vesalius](https://hekint.org/tag/andreas-vesalius/)
- [anatomy](https://hekint.org/tag/anatomy/)
- [cadaver](https://hekint.org/tag/cadaver/)
- [Aubrie Lee](https://hekint.org/tag/aubrie-lee/)
- [Elisabeth Brander](https://hekint.org/tag/elisabeth-brander/)
- [Spring 2014](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2014/)
- [Adela Janickova](https://hekint.org/tag/adela-janickova/)
- [Alexandra Mavrodi](https://hekint.org/tag/alexandra-mavrodi/)
- [Bernardino Genga](https://hekint.org/tag/bernardino-genga/)
- [Mondino](https://hekint.org/tag/mondino/)
- [Catherine Mas](https://hekint.org/tag/catherine-mas/)
- [William Alcott](https://hekint.org/tag/william-alcott/)
- [Charlene Ong](https://hekint.org/tag/charlene-ong/)
- [neuroanatomy](https://hekint.org/tag/neuroanatomy/)
- [Herophilus](https://hekint.org/tag/herophilus/)
- [Vesalius](https://hekint.org/tag/vesalius/)
- [Emmanuelle Godeau](https://hekint.org/tag/emmanuelle-godeau/)
- [cadavers](https://hekint.org/tag/cadavers/)
- [Fall 2009](https://hekint.org/tag/fall-2009/)
- [F.Inge Faust](https://hekint.org/tag/f-inge-faust/)
- [autopsy](https://hekint.org/tag/autopsy/)
- [Fabio Zampieri](https://hekint.org/tag/fabio-zampieri/)
- [Alberto Zanatta](https://hekint.org/tag/alberto-zanatta/)
- [Frank Gonzalez-Crussi](https://hekint.org/tag/frank-gonzalez-crussi/)
- [Leonardo da Vinci](https://hekint.org/tag/leonardo-da-vinci/)
- [Giorgio Vasari](https://hekint.org/tag/giorgio-vasari/)
- [William Hogarth](https://hekint.org/tag/william-hogarth/)
- [Rosalba Ciranni](https://hekint.org/tag/rosalba-ciranni/)
- [James Nie](https://hekint.org/tag/james-nie/)
- [Nicolaes Tulp](https://hekint.org/tag/nicolaes-tulp/)
- [Jennifer Xu](https://hekint.org/tag/jennifer-xu/)
- [Fall 2014](https://hekint.org/tag/fall-2014/)
- [Rembrandt](https://hekint.org/tag/rembrandt/)
- [Julia King](https://hekint.org/tag/julia-king/)
- [Spring 2013](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2013/)
- [Mary Seeman](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-seeman/)
- [Mauro Spicci](https://hekint.org/tag/mauro-spicci/)
- [Summer 2009](https://hekint.org/tag/summer-2009/)
- [Shakespeare](https://hekint.org/tag/shakespeare/)
- [The Merchant of Venice](https://hekint.org/tag/the-merchant-of-venice/)
- [University of Chicago](https://hekint.org/tag/university-of-chicago/)
- [Salvatore Mangione](https://hekint.org/tag/salvatore-mangione/)
- [Stefania Spano](https://hekint.org/tag/stefania-spano/)
- [Tan Chen](https://hekint.org/tag/tan-chen/)
- [Wyn Beasley](https://hekint.org/tag/wyn-beasley/)
- [De Fabrica](https://hekint.org/tag/de-fabrica/)
- [Cicero](https://hekint.org/tag/cicero/)
- [Jundi-Shapur](https://hekint.org/tag/jundi-shapur/)
- [Andrew C. Miller](https://hekint.org/tag/andrew-c-miller/)
- [Mesopotamia](https://hekint.org/tag/mesopotamia/)
- [Winter 2010](https://hekint.org/tag/winter-2010/)
- [British Medical Journal](https://hekint.org/tag/british-medical-journal/)
- [anasarca](https://hekint.org/tag/anasarca/)
- [Eumenes](https://hekint.org/tag/eumenes/)
- [Alexander the Great](https://hekint.org/tag/alexander-the-great/)
- [Hadrian](https://hekint.org/tag/hadrian/)
- [Augustus](https://hekint.org/tag/augustus/)
- [Nineveh](https://hekint.org/tag/nineveh/)
- [Patrick Guinan](https://hekint.org/tag/patrick-guinan/)
- [Virgil](https://hekint.org/tag/virgil/)
- [Steph Magowan](https://hekint.org/tag/steph-magowan/)
- [Alcmaeon](https://hekint.org/tag/alcmaeon/)
- [Alan Blum](https://hekint.org/tag/alan-blum/)
- [Art Collection](https://hekint.org/tag/art-collection/)
- [Barb Schwartz karst](https://hekint.org/tag/barb-schwartz-karst/)
- [Robert Schwarz](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-schwarz/)
- [Bruce Erikson](https://hekint.org/tag/bruce-erikson/)
- [Byung Kook Kwak](https://hekint.org/tag/byung-kook-kwak/)
- [constellation](https://hekint.org/tag/constellation/)
- [Caley McIntyre](https://hekint.org/tag/caley-mcintyre/)
- [Northwestern University](https://hekint.org/tag/northwestern-university/)
- [Clare Roean](https://hekint.org/tag/clare-roean/)
- [flu](https://hekint.org/tag/flu/)
- [nursing homes](https://hekint.org/tag/nursing-homes/)
- [No Mail](https://hekint.org/tag/no-mail/)
- [Evernus Williams](https://hekint.org/tag/evernus-williams/)
- [Death Byte](https://hekint.org/tag/death-byte/)
- [Archaeopteryx Incross](https://hekint.org/tag/archaeopteryx-incross/)
- [Gerda Meyer Bernstein](https://hekint.org/tag/gerda-meyer-bernstein/)
- [Spring 2009](https://hekint.org/tag/spring-2009/)
- [Fassbender Fine Art](https://hekint.org/tag/fassbender-fine-art/)
- [Irene Martinez](https://hekint.org/tag/irene-martinez/)
- [John Stroger](https://hekint.org/tag/john-stroger/)
- [political oppression](https://hekint.org/tag/political-oppression/)
- [Julie Schnidman](https://hekint.org/tag/julie-schnidman/)
- [Annie Yeh](https://hekint.org/tag/annie-yeh/)
- [Hunter Cole](https://hekint.org/tag/hunter-cole/)
- [Peter Gray](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-gray/)
- [Vesna Jovanovic](https://hekint.org/tag/vesna-jovanovic/)
- [Kyle Amber](https://hekint.org/tag/kyle-amber/)
- [vascular deformity](https://hekint.org/tag/vascular-deformity/)
- [Laura Olear](https://hekint.org/tag/laura-olear/)
- [biological imagery](https://hekint.org/tag/biological-imagery/)
- [anorexia](https://hekint.org/tag/anorexia/)
- [Winter 2009](https://hekint.org/tag/winter-2009/)
- [MRSA](https://hekint.org/tag/mrsa/)
- [Bird flu](https://hekint.org/tag/bird-flu/)
- [SARS](https://hekint.org/tag/sars/)
- [hypochondria](https://hekint.org/tag/hypochondria/)
- [Margaret Irene Baczewski](https://hekint.org/tag/margaret-irene-baczewski/)
- [depression](https://hekint.org/tag/depression/)
- [anxiety](https://hekint.org/tag/anxiety/)
- [Meena Malhotra](https://hekint.org/tag/meena-malhotra/)
- [Dendritic Spine Growth](https://hekint.org/tag/dendritic-spine-growth/)
- [biomedical visualization](https://hekint.org/tag/biomedical-visualization/)
- [Mia Brownell](https://hekint.org/tag/mia-brownell/)
- [Miriam Ancis](https://hekint.org/tag/miriam-ancis/)
- [Gouache and Ink](https://hekint.org/tag/gouache-and-ink/)
- [Monika Filipiak Peszek](https://hekint.org/tag/monika-filipiak-peszek/)
- [Awakenings Foundation Center](https://hekint.org/tag/awakenings-foundation-center/)
- [Chicago Illinois](https://hekint.org/tag/chicago-illinois/)
- [Nancy Gershman](https://hekint.org/tag/nancy-gershman/)
- [Lauren Lazar Stern](https://hekint.org/tag/lauren-lazar-stern/)
- [EMDR](https://hekint.org/tag/emdr/)
- [Rachel Baker](https://hekint.org/tag/rachel-baker/)
- [Marc Chagall](https://hekint.org/tag/marc-chagall/)
- [Henry Betts](https://hekint.org/tag/henry-betts/)
- [Vivian Jacobson](https://hekint.org/tag/vivian-jacobson/)
- [Raina Cowan](https://hekint.org/tag/raina-cowan/)
- [infertility](https://hekint.org/tag/infertility/)
- [Madonna no child](https://hekint.org/tag/madonna-no-child/)
- [Rory Hutchinson](https://hekint.org/tag/rory-hutchinson/)
- [Mark Brenan Award](https://hekint.org/tag/mark-brenan-award/)
- [homeless](https://hekint.org/tag/homeless/)
- [Tim Lowly](https://hekint.org/tag/tim-lowly/)
- [Beyond](https://hekint.org/tag/beyond/)
- [Zoom](https://hekint.org/tag/zoom/)
- [Carry me](https://hekint.org/tag/carry-me/)
- [Lifted 1 & 2](https://hekint.org/tag/lifted-1-2/)
- [Art Colelction](https://hekint.org/tag/art-colelction/)
- [pareidolia](https://hekint.org/tag/pareidolia/)
- [Winer 2010](https://hekint.org/tag/winer-2010/)
- [Cordiform](https://hekint.org/tag/cordiform/)
- [Temporal Nexus](https://hekint.org/tag/temporal-nexus/)
- [Zachary Hollis](https://hekint.org/tag/zachary-hollis/)
- [M.C. Escher](https://hekint.org/tag/m-c-escher/)
- [Zel Brook](https://hekint.org/tag/zel-brook/)
- [dysfunctional wheelchair](https://hekint.org/tag/dysfunctional-wheelchair/)
- [The Village Physician](https://hekint.org/tag/the-village-physician/)
- [Egypt](https://hekint.org/tag/egypt/)
- [Domenico Cotugno](https://hekint.org/tag/domenico-cotugno/)
- [Richard Bright](https://hekint.org/tag/richard-bright/)
- [Frederack Akbar Mahomen](https://hekint.org/tag/frederack-akbar-mahomen/)
- [Franz Volhard](https://hekint.org/tag/franz-volhard/)
- [Robert Kark](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-kark/)
- [dialysis](https://hekint.org/tag/dialysis/)
- [Willem Kolff](https://hekint.org/tag/willem-kolff/)
- [Belding Scribner](https://hekint.org/tag/belding-scribner/)
- [kidney disease](https://hekint.org/tag/kidney-disease/)
- [Hansjorg Rothe](https://hekint.org/tag/hansjorg-rothe/)
- [Immanuel Kant](https://hekint.org/tag/immanuel-kant/)
- [Kirtan Nautiyal](https://hekint.org/tag/kirtan-nautiyal/)
- [thomas hodgkin](https://hekint.org/tag/thomas-hodgkin/)
- [Physicians of Note](https://hekint.org/tag/physicians-of-note/)
- [Al-Razi](https://hekint.org/tag/al-razi/)
- [lithotripsy](https://hekint.org/tag/lithotripsy/)
- [Maria Barna](https://hekint.org/tag/maria-barna/)
- [History Essays](https://hekint.org/tag/history-essays/)
- [Alcohol](https://hekint.org/tag/alcohol/)
- [Romania](https://hekint.org/tag/romania/)
- [Daisy Fancourt](https://hekint.org/tag/daisy-fancourt/)
- [Instruments de musique](https://hekint.org/tag/instruments-de-musique/)
- [Opera](https://hekint.org/tag/opera/)
- [Joan Sutherland](https://hekint.org/tag/joan-sutherland/)
- [Franz Schubert](https://hekint.org/tag/franz-schubert/)
- [Robert Schumann](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-schumann/)
- [James Franklin](https://hekint.org/tag/james-franklin/)
- [Marin Marais](https://hekint.org/tag/marin-marais/)
- [Maria Callas](https://hekint.org/tag/maria-callas/)
- [La Traviata](https://hekint.org/tag/la-traviata/)
- [Julia Price](https://hekint.org/tag/julia-price/)
- [Alexander Scriabin](https://hekint.org/tag/alexander-scriabin/)
- [Lazaros Triarhou](https://hekint.org/tag/lazaros-triarhou/)
- [Lea Dacy](https://hekint.org/tag/lea-dacy/)
- [Moses Rodriguez](https://hekint.org/tag/moses-rodriguez/)
- [Jacqueline du Pre](https://hekint.org/tag/jacqueline-du-pre/)
- [GUstav Mahler](https://hekint.org/tag/gustav-mahler/)
- [Steven Cheng](https://hekint.org/tag/steven-cheng/)
- [Tatiana Novikova](https://hekint.org/tag/tatiana-novikova/)
- [Vincent de Luise](https://hekint.org/tag/vincent-de-luise/)
- [Handel](https://hekint.org/tag/handel/)
- [Anika Khan](https://hekint.org/tag/anika-khan/)
- [Jean-Dominique Bauby](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-dominique-bauby/)
- [Bindu Desai](https://hekint.org/tag/bindu-desai/)
- [acute syrinx](https://hekint.org/tag/acute-syrinx/)
- [Bo Laestadius](https://hekint.org/tag/bo-laestadius/)
- [Pascal](https://hekint.org/tag/pascal/)
- [Groucho Marx](https://hekint.org/tag/groucho-marx/)
- [Colleen Donnelly](https://hekint.org/tag/colleen-donnelly/)
- [Oliver Sacks](https://hekint.org/tag/oliver-sacks/)
- [The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a hat](https://hekint.org/tag/the-man-who-mistook-his-wife-for-a-hat/)
- [concussion](https://hekint.org/tag/concussion/)
- [No Man's Land](https://hekint.org/tag/no-mans-land/)
- [dementia](https://hekint.org/tag/dementia/)
- [Alexandre Dumas](https://hekint.org/tag/alexandre-dumas/)
- [The Count of Monte Cristo](https://hekint.org/tag/the-count-of-monte-cristo/)
- [Jean-Martin Charcot](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-martin-charcot/)
- [Filippo Pacini](https://hekint.org/tag/filippo-pacini/)
- [Darwin](https://hekint.org/tag/darwin/)
- [MAS Ahmed](https://hekint.org/tag/mas-ahmed/)
- [Ridhwan Bin Hassan](https://hekint.org/tag/ridhwan-bin-hassan/)
- [epilepsy](https://hekint.org/tag/epilepsy/)
- [Michael McColly](https://hekint.org/tag/michael-mccolly/)
- [Emily Dickenson](https://hekint.org/tag/emily-dickenson/)
- [Paul Broca](https://hekint.org/tag/paul-broca/)
- [Shameemah Abrahams](https://hekint.org/tag/shameemah-abrahams/)
- [Sigmund Freud](https://hekint.org/tag/sigmund-freud/)
- [Terri Sinnott](https://hekint.org/tag/terri-sinnott/)
- [migraines](https://hekint.org/tag/migraines/)
- [Amy Webb](https://hekint.org/tag/amy-webb/)
- [Elena Levitskaya](https://hekint.org/tag/elena-levitskaya/)
- [Healing](https://hekint.org/tag/healing/)
- [breast cancer](https://hekint.org/tag/breast-cancer/)
- [Bharata Wingham](https://hekint.org/tag/bharata-wingham/)
- [Chriss Keiss](https://hekint.org/tag/chriss-keiss/)
- [Michael Miller](https://hekint.org/tag/michael-miller/)
- [laughter](https://hekint.org/tag/laughter/)
- [Jean Cozier](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-cozier/)
- [sexual abuse](https://hekint.org/tag/sexual-abuse/)
- [motherhood](https://hekint.org/tag/motherhood/)
- [Kari Lindholm-Johnson](https://hekint.org/tag/kari-lindholm-johnson/)
- [Swedish Covenant Hospital](https://hekint.org/tag/swedish-covenant-hospital/)
- [Kate Hawkes](https://hekint.org/tag/kate-hawkes/)
- [wellness](https://hekint.org/tag/wellness/)
- [Laura van Dernoont Lipsky](https://hekint.org/tag/laura-van-dernoont-lipsky/)
- [Connie Burk](https://hekint.org/tag/connie-burk/)
- [Laurie Elise Gordon](https://hekint.org/tag/laurie-elise-gordon/)
- [Sveta Dorosheva](https://hekint.org/tag/sveta-dorosheva/)
- [Margo Davis](https://hekint.org/tag/margo-davis/)
- [mandala](https://hekint.org/tag/mandala/)
- [Mary Lynn Everson](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-lynn-everson/)
- [Greg Halvorsen Schreck](https://hekint.org/tag/greg-halvorsen-schreck/)
- [Mary Shannon](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-shannon/)
- [Ruth Margalit](https://hekint.org/tag/ruth-margalit/)
- [Christopher Leet](https://hekint.org/tag/christopher-leet/)
- [Shaili Jain](https://hekint.org/tag/shaili-jain/)
- [veterans](https://hekint.org/tag/veterans/)
- [William Morton](https://hekint.org/tag/william-morton/)
- [Ether Day](https://hekint.org/tag/ether-day/)
- [Armando Susmano](https://hekint.org/tag/armando-susmano/)
- [Yalta Summit](https://hekint.org/tag/yalta-summit/)
- [Winston Churchill](https://hekint.org/tag/winston-churchill/)
- [Franklin Delano Roosevelt](https://hekint.org/tag/franklin-delano-roosevelt/)
- [Joseph Stalin](https://hekint.org/tag/joseph-stalin/)
- [Biji Kurien](https://hekint.org/tag/biji-kurien/)
- [Louis Pasteur](https://hekint.org/tag/louis-pasteur/)
- [Brian Sharpless](https://hekint.org/tag/brian-sharpless/)
- [Henry Fuseli](https://hekint.org/tag/henry-fuseli/)
- [The Nightmare](https://hekint.org/tag/the-nightmare/)
- [Craig Blackstone](https://hekint.org/tag/craig-blackstone/)
- [Kreuzer](https://hekint.org/tag/kreuzer/)
- [Hogmouth](https://hekint.org/tag/hogmouth/)
- [Frank Wollheim](https://hekint.org/tag/frank-wollheim/)
- [Henry Kunkel](https://hekint.org/tag/henry-kunkel/)
- [Lord David Owen](https://hekint.org/tag/lord-david-owen/)
- [King Charles II](https://hekint.org/tag/king-charles-ii/)
- [Adil Menon](https://hekint.org/tag/adil-menon/)
- [Cell Biology](https://hekint.org/tag/cell-biology/)
- [Rockefeller Institute](https://hekint.org/tag/rockefeller-institute/)
- [King Edward VI](https://hekint.org/tag/king-edward-vi/)
- [Prince Edward](https://hekint.org/tag/prince-edward/)
- [Lord Moran](https://hekint.org/tag/lord-moran/)
- [Prince Albert](https://hekint.org/tag/prince-albert/)
- [George Washington](https://hekint.org/tag/george-washington/)
- [WIlliam Pitt](https://hekint.org/tag/william-pitt/)
- [John SIngleton Copley](https://hekint.org/tag/john-singleton-copley/)
- [Karl Anton Hickel](https://hekint.org/tag/karl-anton-hickel/)
- [Maximilian II](https://hekint.org/tag/maximilian-ii/)
- [King Henry VIII](https://hekint.org/tag/king-henry-viii/)
- [Sabbatai Zvi](https://hekint.org/tag/sabbatai-zvi/)
- [Ira Rezak](https://hekint.org/tag/ira-rezak/)
- [Lewis Pingo](https://hekint.org/tag/lewis-pingo/)
- [coins](https://hekint.org/tag/coins/)
- [James Mathew](https://hekint.org/tag/james-mathew/)
- [Salim Yusef](https://hekint.org/tag/salim-yusef/)
- [Adoor Gopalakrishnan](https://hekint.org/tag/adoor-gopalakrishnan/)
- [john Parascandola](https://hekint.org/tag/john-parascandola/)
- [arsenic](https://hekint.org/tag/arsenic/)
- [Styria](https://hekint.org/tag/styria/)
- [John Riker](https://hekint.org/tag/john-riker/)
- [The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton](https://hekint.org/tag/the-capture-of-the-hessians-at-trenton/)
- [Mahmood Bhutta](https://hekint.org/tag/mahmood-bhutta/)
- [Marshall Lichtman](https://hekint.org/tag/marshall-lichtman/)
- [William Masters](https://hekint.org/tag/william-masters/)
- [Virginia Johnson](https://hekint.org/tag/virginia-johnson/)
- [Natasja Vandepitte](https://hekint.org/tag/natasja-vandepitte/)
- [Michael Potts](https://hekint.org/tag/michael-potts/)
- [Thomas Aquinas](https://hekint.org/tag/thomas-aquinas/)
- [Robert Siegel](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-siegel/)
- [Jussi Bjorling](https://hekint.org/tag/jussi-bjorling/)
- [Roshan Radhakrishnan](https://hekint.org/tag/roshan-radhakrishnan/)
- [Horace Wells](https://hekint.org/tag/horace-wells/)
- [Carol Levine](https://hekint.org/tag/carol-levine/)
- [Magda Szabo](https://hekint.org/tag/magda-szabo/)
- [The Door](https://hekint.org/tag/the-door/)
- [Iza's Ballad](https://hekint.org/tag/izas-ballad/)
- [Sympathy](https://hekint.org/tag/sympathy/)
- [Silas finds Eppie](https://hekint.org/tag/silas-finds-eppie/)
- [Edgar Allan Poe](https://hekint.org/tag/edgar-allan-poe/)
- [Fizzah Ali](https://hekint.org/tag/fizzah-ali/)
- [A Streetcar Named Desire](https://hekint.org/tag/a-streetcar-named-desire/)
- [Blanche Dubois](https://hekint.org/tag/blanche-dubois/)
- [Heather Stewart](https://hekint.org/tag/heather-stewart/)
- [A Woman Under the Influence](https://hekint.org/tag/a-woman-under-the-influence/)
- [John Cassavetes](https://hekint.org/tag/john-cassavetes/)
- [John Raffensberger](https://hekint.org/tag/john-raffensberger/)
- [gastroenterology](https://hekint.org/tag/gastroenterology/)
- [Maria Sgouridou](https://hekint.org/tag/maria-sgouridou/)
- [Giovanni Boccaccio](https://hekint.org/tag/giovanni-boccaccio/)
- [The Decameron](https://hekint.org/tag/the-decameron/)
- [Mary Ann McDermott](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-ann-mcdermott/)
- [arts](https://hekint.org/tag/arts/)
- [Peter Korsten](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-korsten/)
- [Thomas Mann](https://hekint.org/tag/thomas-mann/)
- [The Magic Mountain](https://hekint.org/tag/the-magic-mountain/)
- [Peter McCann](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-mccann/)
- [Rachel Bracken](https://hekint.org/tag/rachel-bracken/)
- [Rema Sundar](https://hekint.org/tag/rema-sundar/)
- [domestic violence](https://hekint.org/tag/domestic-violence/)
- [film](https://hekint.org/tag/film/)
- [Elizabeth Gaskell](https://hekint.org/tag/elizabeth-gaskell/)
- [Sara Baker](https://hekint.org/tag/sara-baker/)
- [Edward St. Aubyn](https://hekint.org/tag/edward-st-aubyn/)
- [Ethics](https://hekint.org/tag/ethics/)
- [The Island of Dr. Moreau](https://hekint.org/tag/the-island-of-dr-moreau/)
- [H.G. Wells](https://hekint.org/tag/h-g-wells/)
- [Sima Barmania](https://hekint.org/tag/sima-barmania/)
- [Alain de Botton](https://hekint.org/tag/alain-de-botton/)
- [The Pleasures and Sorrow of WOrk](https://hekint.org/tag/the-pleasures-and-sorrow-of-work/)
- [Solomon Posen](https://hekint.org/tag/solomon-posen/)
- [Seize the Day](https://hekint.org/tag/seize-the-day/)
- [Yeji Lee](https://hekint.org/tag/yeji-lee/)
- [Damon Tweedy](https://hekint.org/tag/damon-tweedy/)
- [race](https://hekint.org/tag/race/)
- [Disability](https://hekint.org/tag/disability/)
- [Lea Mendes](https://hekint.org/tag/lea-mendes/)
- [Homelessness](https://hekint.org/tag/homelessness/)
- [Palliative Care](https://hekint.org/tag/palliative-care/)
- [Doctors Patients and Diseases](https://hekint.org/tag/doctors-patients-and-diseases/)
- [Marina Maffoni](https://hekint.org/tag/marina-maffoni/)
- [Francesca Dionigi](https://hekint.org/tag/francesca-dionigi/)
- [End of Life](https://hekint.org/tag/end-of-life/)
- [Gregory Rutecki](https://hekint.org/tag/gregory-rutecki/)
- [Tuberculosis](https://hekint.org/tag/tuberculosis/)
- [Nursing](https://hekint.org/tag/nursing/)
- [Civil War](https://hekint.org/tag/civil-war/)
- [Carol Battaglia](https://hekint.org/tag/carol-battaglia/)
- [Vietnam](https://hekint.org/tag/vietnam/)
- [Christopher Schayer](https://hekint.org/tag/christopher-schayer/)
- [Radio City Music Hall](https://hekint.org/tag/radio-city-music-hall/)
- [Denise Pasieka](https://hekint.org/tag/denise-pasieka/)
- [oppression](https://hekint.org/tag/oppression/)
- [Drita Puharic](https://hekint.org/tag/drita-puharic/)
- [coffee](https://hekint.org/tag/coffee/)
- [Elizabeth Cambier](https://hekint.org/tag/elizabeth-cambier/)
- [Erin Brady](https://hekint.org/tag/erin-brady/)
- [Geraldine Gorman](https://hekint.org/tag/geraldine-gorman/)
- [No More Deaths](https://hekint.org/tag/no-more-deaths/)
- [sangha](https://hekint.org/tag/sangha/)
- [Judith Frei](https://hekint.org/tag/judith-frei/)
- [Bones](https://hekint.org/tag/bones/)
- [Kristen Erickson](https://hekint.org/tag/kristen-erickson/)
- [glioblastoma](https://hekint.org/tag/glioblastoma/)
- [Laura Monahan](https://hekint.org/tag/laura-monahan/)
- [Lynda Slimmer](https://hekint.org/tag/lynda-slimmer/)
- [Mat Matteson](https://hekint.org/tag/mat-matteson/)
- [Mark Lubich](https://hekint.org/tag/mark-lubich/)
- [Manic Heart](https://hekint.org/tag/manic-heart/)
- [Mathew Kinsella](https://hekint.org/tag/mathew-kinsella/)
- [Ken Kesey](https://hekint.org/tag/ken-kesey/)
- [Nancy Burke](https://hekint.org/tag/nancy-burke/)
- [rheumatoid arthritis](https://hekint.org/tag/rheumatoid-arthritis/)
- [Shirley Stephenson](https://hekint.org/tag/shirley-stephenson/)
- [Mark Belokopytov](https://hekint.org/tag/mark-belokopytov/)
- [Stephanie Ezell](https://hekint.org/tag/stephanie-ezell/)
- [Victorina Malones](https://hekint.org/tag/victorina-malones/)
- [Moustaka & Constantinidis](https://hekint.org/tag/moustaka-constantinidis/)
- [Stojkovic-Ivkovic](https://hekint.org/tag/stojkovic-ivkovic/)
- [Anne Jacobson](https://hekint.org/tag/anne-jacobson/)
- [Travel](https://hekint.org/tag/travel/)
- [Benjamin Li](https://hekint.org/tag/benjamin-li/)
- [Zen](https://hekint.org/tag/zen/)
- [EInar Perman](https://hekint.org/tag/einar-perman/)
- [John Moore Gavin Hamilton](https://hekint.org/tag/john-moore-gavin-hamilton/)
- [John Moore](https://hekint.org/tag/john-moore/)
- [Eric Breitbart](https://hekint.org/tag/eric-breitbart/)
- [Stendhal syndrome](https://hekint.org/tag/stendhal-syndrome/)
- [Graziella Magherini](https://hekint.org/tag/graziella-magherini/)
- [Jessie Seiler](https://hekint.org/tag/jessie-seiler/)
- [Senegal](https://hekint.org/tag/senegal/)
- [Peace Corps](https://hekint.org/tag/peace-corps/)
- [Joan Callahan](https://hekint.org/tag/joan-callahan/)
- [Paris](https://hekint.org/tag/paris/)
- [Kathleen Taylor](https://hekint.org/tag/kathleen-taylor/)
- [Marcia Whitney-Schenk](https://hekint.org/tag/marcia-whitney-schenk/)
- [Robert Schenck](https://hekint.org/tag/robert-schenck/)
- [The Silk Road](https://hekint.org/tag/the-silk-road/)
- [Sara Buck](https://hekint.org/tag/sara-buck/)
- [Dakar](https://hekint.org/tag/dakar/)
- [Ferdinand Reus](https://hekint.org/tag/ferdinand-reus/)
- [Winona Winkler Wendth](https://hekint.org/tag/winona-winkler-wendth/)
- [Winona Wendth](https://hekint.org/tag/winona-wendth/)
- [Terezin](https://hekint.org/tag/terezin/)
- [Hippocrates](https://hekint.org/tag/hippocrates/)
- [Brit Trogen](https://hekint.org/tag/brit-trogen/)
- [Emily Martin](https://hekint.org/tag/emily-martin/)
- [Aristotle](https://hekint.org/tag/aristotle/)
- [Chloe DeLisle](https://hekint.org/tag/chloe-delisle/)
- [Chaostrophy](https://hekint.org/tag/chaostrophy/)
- [Nigeria](https://hekint.org/tag/nigeria/)
- [HIV](https://hekint.org/tag/hiv/)
- [Howard Brody](https://hekint.org/tag/howard-brody/)
- [The Healer's Power](https://hekint.org/tag/the-healers-power/)
- [Jean-Paul Sartre](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-paul-sartre/)
- [Jonathon Bean](https://hekint.org/tag/jonathon-bean/)
- [David Ng](https://hekint.org/tag/david-ng/)
- [Hakan Demirtas](https://hekint.org/tag/hakan-demirtas/)
- [Torture Journal](https://hekint.org/tag/torture-journal/)
- [Joshua Baru](https://hekint.org/tag/joshua-baru/)
- [Benjamin Mba](https://hekint.org/tag/benjamin-mba/)
- [Schwartz Center Rounds](https://hekint.org/tag/schwartz-center-rounds/)
- [Justin Le Blanc](https://hekint.org/tag/justin-le-blanc/)
- [Karen Dyer](https://hekint.org/tag/karen-dyer/)
- [organ donation](https://hekint.org/tag/organ-donation/)
- [Cathy Peters](https://hekint.org/tag/cathy-peters/)
- [A Work In Progress](https://hekint.org/tag/a-work-in-progress/)
- [Kumara Raja Sundar](https://hekint.org/tag/kumara-raja-sundar/)
- [Baby in Hand](https://hekint.org/tag/baby-in-hand/)
- [Michael Konik](https://hekint.org/tag/michael-konik/)
- [mental illness](https://hekint.org/tag/mental-illness/)
- [Nadav Davidovitch](https://hekint.org/tag/nadav-davidovitch/)
- [Nancy Kass](https://hekint.org/tag/nancy-kass/)
- [public health](https://hekint.org/tag/public-health/)
- [Ethical and Religious Directives](https://hekint.org/tag/ethical-and-religious-directives/)
- [ERD](https://hekint.org/tag/erd/)
- [Social Justice Review](https://hekint.org/tag/social-justice-review/)
- [Hannah Arendt](https://hekint.org/tag/hannah-arendt/)
- [Voltaire](https://hekint.org/tag/voltaire/)
- [Linacre Quarterly](https://hekint.org/tag/linacre-quarterly/)
- [Hippocratic Oath](https://hekint.org/tag/hippocratic-oath/)
- [Persis Naumann](https://hekint.org/tag/persis-naumann/)
- [clinical trials](https://hekint.org/tag/clinical-trials/)
- [Ragini Kulkarni](https://hekint.org/tag/ragini-kulkarni/)
- [pregnancy](https://hekint.org/tag/pregnancy/)
- [Jan Christian Smuts](https://hekint.org/tag/jan-christian-smuts/)
- [Richard Tully](https://hekint.org/tag/richard-tully/)
- [Sorrowing Old Man](https://hekint.org/tag/sorrowing-old-man/)
- [Vincent Van Gogh](https://hekint.org/tag/vincent-van-gogh/)
- [Ronald Pies](https://hekint.org/tag/ronald-pies/)
- [Martin Luther King](https://hekint.org/tag/martin-luther-king/)
- [Stephanie Grach](https://hekint.org/tag/stephanie-grach/)
- [mentorship](https://hekint.org/tag/mentorship/)
- [Wolfgang Lederer](https://hekint.org/tag/wolfgang-lederer/)
- [Paul Wood](https://hekint.org/tag/paul-wood/)
- [Cardiology](https://hekint.org/tag/cardiology/)
- [Chris Arthur](https://hekint.org/tag/chris-arthur/)
- [Frank Pantridge](https://hekint.org/tag/frank-pantridge/)
- [Colin Phoon](https://hekint.org/tag/colin-phoon/)
- [Helen Taussig](https://hekint.org/tag/helen-taussig/)
- [Alfred Blalock](https://hekint.org/tag/alfred-blalock/)
- [Vivien Thomas](https://hekint.org/tag/vivien-thomas/)
- [Daly Walker](https://hekint.org/tag/daly-walker/)
- [Arterial Nests](https://hekint.org/tag/arterial-nests/)
- [Emily Boyle](https://hekint.org/tag/emily-boyle/)
- [Carlotta Grisi](https://hekint.org/tag/carlotta-grisi/)
- [Giselle](https://hekint.org/tag/giselle/)
- [stethoscope](https://hekint.org/tag/stethoscope/)
- [Laennec](https://hekint.org/tag/laennec/)
- [Fiona Robertson](https://hekint.org/tag/fiona-robertson/)
- [Pompeo Batoni](https://hekint.org/tag/pompeo-batoni/)
- [William Withering](https://hekint.org/tag/william-withering/)
- [Jean Corvisart](https://hekint.org/tag/jean-corvisart/)
- [Sir Thomas Lewis](https://hekint.org/tag/sir-thomas-lewis/)
- [Graham Steell](https://hekint.org/tag/graham-steell/)
- [Austin Flint](https://hekint.org/tag/austin-flint/)
- [Paul Berman](https://hekint.org/tag/paul-berman/)
- [Goran Wettrell](https://hekint.org/tag/goran-wettrell/)
- [Maude Abbott](https://hekint.org/tag/maude-abbott/)
- [McGill University](https://hekint.org/tag/mcgill-university/)
- [echocardiogram](https://hekint.org/tag/echocardiogram/)
- [Hellmuth Hertz](https://hekint.org/tag/hellmuth-hertz/)
- [Raymond de Vieussens](https://hekint.org/tag/raymond-de-vieussens/)
- [Jimmy Tam Huy Pham](https://hekint.org/tag/jimmy-tam-huy-pham/)
- [John Barlow](https://hekint.org/tag/john-barlow/)
- [Nelson Mandela](https://hekint.org/tag/nelson-mandela/)
- [Jeremy Swan](https://hekint.org/tag/jeremy-swan/)
- [Camel](https://hekint.org/tag/camel/)
- [Afghanistan](https://hekint.org/tag/afghanistan/)
- [compassion](https://hekint.org/tag/compassion/)
- [Mahesh Raju](https://hekint.org/tag/mahesh-raju/)
- [Andreas Roland Gruentzig](https://hekint.org/tag/andreas-roland-gruentzig/)
- [Victoria Turnock](https://hekint.org/tag/victoria-turnock/)
- [Matko Marusic](https://hekint.org/tag/matko-marusic/)
- [Philip Liebson](https://hekint.org/tag/philip-liebson/)
- [William Harvey](https://hekint.org/tag/william-harvey/)
- [Willem Einthoven](https://hekint.org/tag/willem-einthoven/)
- [Nikolai Korotkov](https://hekint.org/tag/nikolai-korotkov/)
- [Ludwig Hektoen](https://hekint.org/tag/ludwig-hektoen/)
- [Henrik Dam](https://hekint.org/tag/henrik-dam/)
- [electrocardiograph](https://hekint.org/tag/electrocardiograph/)
- [Andre Cournand](https://hekint.org/tag/andre-cournand/)
- [Adrian Kantrowitz](https://hekint.org/tag/adrian-kantrowitz/)
- [Samuel Levine](https://hekint.org/tag/samuel-levine/)
- [Thomas Lewis](https://hekint.org/tag/thomas-lewis/)
- [Rachel Kowalcyzk](https://hekint.org/tag/rachel-kowalcyzk/)
- [Nightfall](https://hekint.org/tag/nightfall/)
- [Isla Palenque](https://hekint.org/tag/isla-palenque/)
- [Mike Corey](https://hekint.org/tag/mike-corey/)
- [Ramin Sam](https://hekint.org/tag/ramin-sam/)
- [Riccardo Benvenuto](https://hekint.org/tag/riccardo-benvenuto/)
- [Maria Serratto-Benvenuto](https://hekint.org/tag/maria-serratto-benvenuto/)
- [Cook County Hospital](https://hekint.org/tag/cook-county-hospital/)
- [Terry Wahls](https://hekint.org/tag/terry-wahls/)
- [Treadmill](https://hekint.org/tag/treadmill/)
- [Victor Grech](https://hekint.org/tag/victor-grech/)
- [Star Trek](https://hekint.org/tag/star-trek/)
- [W. Roy Smythe](https://hekint.org/tag/w-roy-smythe/)
- [Jemere Bohnert](https://hekint.org/tag/jemere-bohnert/)
- [Thomas Eakins](https://hekint.org/tag/thomas-eakins/)
- [Desmond MacHale](https://hekint.org/tag/desmond-machale/)
- [Yvonne Cohen](https://hekint.org/tag/yvonne-cohen/)
- [Birth Pregnancy and Obstetrics](https://hekint.org/tag/birth-pregnancy-and-obstetrics/)
- [C. John Scott](https://hekint.org/tag/c-john-scott/)
- [Alexander Gordon](https://hekint.org/tag/alexander-gordon/)
- [Andrea Marks](https://hekint.org/tag/andrea-marks/)
- [Caitlin Meyer](https://hekint.org/tag/caitlin-meyer/)
- [Gericault](https://hekint.org/tag/gericault/)
- [Addiction](https://hekint.org/tag/addiction/)
- [Queen Anne's lace](https://hekint.org/tag/queen-annes-lace/)
- [the birth of Bacchus](https://hekint.org/tag/the-birth-of-bacchus/)
- [Nicolas Poussin](https://hekint.org/tag/nicolas-poussin/)
- [Douglas Russell](https://hekint.org/tag/douglas-russell/)
- [Meditation](https://hekint.org/tag/meditation/)
- [Gargamelle](https://hekint.org/tag/gargamelle/)
- [Grandgousier](https://hekint.org/tag/grandgousier/)
- [Nicotine](https://hekint.org/tag/nicotine/)
- [Tobacco](https://hekint.org/tag/tobacco/)
- [Adam](https://hekint.org/tag/adam/)
- [Eve](https://hekint.org/tag/eve/)
- [Michelangelo](https://hekint.org/tag/michelangelo/)
- [Athena](https://hekint.org/tag/athena/)
- [Brain Injury](https://hekint.org/tag/brain-injury/)
- [George Clooney](https://hekint.org/tag/george-clooney/)
- [John the Baptist](https://hekint.org/tag/john-the-baptist/)
- [St. Luke](https://hekint.org/tag/st-luke/)
- [Pegasus](https://hekint.org/tag/pegasus/)
- [Medusa](https://hekint.org/tag/medusa/)
- [Poseidon](https://hekint.org/tag/poseidon/)
- [The Birth of Venus](https://hekint.org/tag/the-birth-of-venus/)
- [Elizabeth Lee](https://hekint.org/tag/elizabeth-lee/)
- [Moses](https://hekint.org/tag/moses/)
- [Santa Claus](https://hekint.org/tag/santa-claus/)
- [Bari](https://hekint.org/tag/bari/)
- [Farrah Jawad](https://hekint.org/tag/farrah-jawad/)
- [Frida Kahlo](https://hekint.org/tag/frida-kahlo/)
- [Hans Zinsser](https://hekint.org/tag/hans-zinsser/)
- [Antonio Vivarini](https://hekint.org/tag/antonio-vivarini/)
- [Florence Gelo](https://hekint.org/tag/florence-gelo/)
- [Deena Gu](https://hekint.org/tag/deena-gu/)
- [Bacchus](https://hekint.org/tag/bacchus/)
- [Mary](https://hekint.org/tag/mary/)
- [Ovid](https://hekint.org/tag/ovid/)
- [Paulus Aegineta](https://hekint.org/tag/paulus-aegineta/)
- [Jan Steen](https://hekint.org/tag/jan-steen/)
- [Princess Charlotte](https://hekint.org/tag/princess-charlotte/)
- [breastfeeding](https://hekint.org/tag/breastfeeding/)
- [Janis Rozentals](https://hekint.org/tag/janis-rozentals/)
- [Gloria Graham](https://hekint.org/tag/gloria-graham/)
- [Francesca Tornabuoni](https://hekint.org/tag/francesca-tornabuoni/)
- [Eliette Markhbein](https://hekint.org/tag/eliette-markhbein/)
- [processing speed](https://hekint.org/tag/processing-speed/)
- [psychomotor speed](https://hekint.org/tag/psychomotor-speed/)
- [Kelly Klein](https://hekint.org/tag/kelly-klein/)
- [University of Michigan](https://hekint.org/tag/university-of-michigan/)
- [Laura Kaplan](https://hekint.org/tag/laura-kaplan/)
- [William Shippen](https://hekint.org/tag/william-shippen/)
- [Wassily Kandinsky](https://hekint.org/tag/wassily-kandinsky/)
- [synesthesia](https://hekint.org/tag/synesthesia/)
- [Lauren Fore](https://hekint.org/tag/lauren-fore/)
- [Ian Williams](https://hekint.org/tag/ian-williams/)
- [Brian Fies](https://hekint.org/tag/brian-fies/)
- [Justin Green](https://hekint.org/tag/justin-green/)
- [Croatia](https://hekint.org/tag/croatia/)
- [corpus callosum](https://hekint.org/tag/corpus-callosum/)
- [sketches](https://hekint.org/tag/sketches/)
- [Luke Fildes](https://hekint.org/tag/luke-fildes/)
- [Rembrandt van Rijn](https://hekint.org/tag/rembrandt-van-rijn/)
- [Forceps](https://hekint.org/tag/forceps/)
- [Peter Chamberlen](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-chamberlen/)
- [WIlliam Smellie](https://hekint.org/tag/william-smellie/)
- [Ignaz Semmelweis](https://hekint.org/tag/ignaz-semmelweis/)
- [Jorge Lazareff](https://hekint.org/tag/jorge-lazareff/)
- [dura mater](https://hekint.org/tag/dura-mater/)
- [Francis Crick](https://hekint.org/tag/francis-crick/)
- [Papagiannis](https://hekint.org/tag/papagiannis/)
- [Anthony](https://hekint.org/tag/anthony/)
- [At turning point](https://hekint.org/tag/at-turning-point/)
- [Mathias Grunewald](https://hekint.org/tag/mathias-grunewald/)
- [Doctor Zhivago](https://hekint.org/tag/doctor-zhivago/)
- [Stalin](https://hekint.org/tag/stalin/)
- [Boris Pasternak](https://hekint.org/tag/boris-pasternak/)
- [Murad Moosa Khan](https://hekint.org/tag/murad-moosa-khan/)
- [Which weighs upon the heart](https://hekint.org/tag/which-weighs-upon-the-heart/)
- [Sukanya Sam](https://hekint.org/tag/sukanya-sam/)
- [Laurinda Dixon](https://hekint.org/tag/laurinda-dixon/)
- [Hieronymus Bosch](https://hekint.org/tag/hieronymus-bosch/)
- [chlorosis](https://hekint.org/tag/chlorosis/)
- [neurasthenia](https://hekint.org/tag/neurasthenia/)
- [Cristobal Rojas](https://hekint.org/tag/cristobal-rojas/)
- [The Misery](https://hekint.org/tag/the-misery/)
- [Markley Boyer](https://hekint.org/tag/markley-boyer/)
- [Margaret Sanger](https://hekint.org/tag/margaret-sanger/)
- [Planned Parenthood](https://hekint.org/tag/planned-parenthood/)
- [Joyce Cutler-Shaw](https://hekint.org/tag/joyce-cutler-shaw/)
- [Michelle Paff](https://hekint.org/tag/michelle-paff/)
- [anesthetist](https://hekint.org/tag/anesthetist/)
- [Lost Baby](https://hekint.org/tag/lost-baby/)
- [Perception](https://hekint.org/tag/perception/)
- [photomontage](https://hekint.org/tag/photomontage/)
- [Nicholas Feinberg](https://hekint.org/tag/nicholas-feinberg/)
- [Niyi Awofeso](https://hekint.org/tag/niyi-awofeso/)
- [Anu Rammohan](https://hekint.org/tag/anu-rammohan/)
- [Peter Kopplin](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-kopplin/)
- [Claude Monet](https://hekint.org/tag/claude-monet/)
- [xanthopsia](https://hekint.org/tag/xanthopsia/)
- [psychoanalysis](https://hekint.org/tag/psychoanalysis/)
- [Egon Schiele](https://hekint.org/tag/egon-schiele/)
- [Roger Paden](https://hekint.org/tag/roger-paden/)
- [Gustav Klimt](https://hekint.org/tag/gustav-klimt/)
- [Franz Matsch](https://hekint.org/tag/franz-matsch/)
- [Will](https://hekint.org/tag/will/)
- [Schopenhauer](https://hekint.org/tag/schopenhauer/)
- [Sally Metzel](https://hekint.org/tag/sally-metzel/)
- [Syphilis](https://hekint.org/tag/syphilis/)
- [angiotensin](https://hekint.org/tag/angiotensin/)
- [Anthea Gellie](https://hekint.org/tag/anthea-gellie/)
- [Michele Levinson](https://hekint.org/tag/michele-levinson/)
- [Sam Shuster](https://hekint.org/tag/sam-shuster/)
- [Emotions](https://hekint.org/tag/emotions/)
- [barbe bouche](https://hekint.org/tag/barbe-bouche/)
- [Anthony Papagiannis](https://hekint.org/tag/anthony-papagiannis/)
- [pulmonologist](https://hekint.org/tag/pulmonologist/)
- [Carole Travis-Henikoff](https://hekint.org/tag/carole-travis-henikoff/)
- [Woody Allen](https://hekint.org/tag/woody-allen/)
- [Caroline Wellbery](https://hekint.org/tag/caroline-wellbery/)
- [John Finn](https://hekint.org/tag/john-finn/)
- [Chang-Wuk Kang](https://hekint.org/tag/chang-wuk-kang/)
- [Christopher Cameron](https://hekint.org/tag/christopher-cameron/)
- [Ukraine](https://hekint.org/tag/ukraine/)
- [Sara Oberg Stradal](https://hekint.org/tag/sara-oberg-stradal/)
- [John of Arderne](https://hekint.org/tag/john-of-arderne/)
- [Zodiac Man](https://hekint.org/tag/zodiac-man/)
- [Vein Man](https://hekint.org/tag/vein-man/)
- [Bobby Baker](https://hekint.org/tag/bobby-baker/)
- [Elizabeth Swados](https://hekint.org/tag/elizabeth-swados/)
- [Constance Putnam](https://hekint.org/tag/constance-putnam/)
- [Todd Hochberg](https://hekint.org/tag/todd-hochberg/)
- [Dean Gianakos](https://hekint.org/tag/dean-gianakos/)
- [Stefania Slenzio](https://hekint.org/tag/stefania-slenzio/)
- [Ivan Minski](https://hekint.org/tag/ivan-minski/)
- [Jack Jones](https://hekint.org/tag/jack-jones/)
- [Hotel Dieu](https://hekint.org/tag/hotel-dieu/)
- [COPD](https://hekint.org/tag/copd/)
- [Elizabeth Neglia](https://hekint.org/tag/elizabeth-neglia/)
- [Drexel University](https://hekint.org/tag/drexel-university/)
- [Jenny Wright](https://hekint.org/tag/jenny-wright/)
- [Gaetan Sgro](https://hekint.org/tag/gaetan-sgro/)
- [Andrew Whalley](https://hekint.org/tag/andrew-whalley/)
- [Geoff Kronik](https://hekint.org/tag/geoff-kronik/)
- [Sir William Osler](https://hekint.org/tag/sir-william-osler/)
- [Sathyaraj Venkatesan](https://hekint.org/tag/sathyaraj-venkatesan/)
- [Anu Mary Peter](https://hekint.org/tag/anu-mary-peter/)
- [James Rickert](https://hekint.org/tag/james-rickert/)
- [Michel Royon](https://hekint.org/tag/michel-royon/)
- [Ovarian cancer](https://hekint.org/tag/ovarian-cancer/)
- [John Schumann](https://hekint.org/tag/john-schumann/)
- [CPR](https://hekint.org/tag/cpr/)
- [Karen De Looze](https://hekint.org/tag/karen-de-looze/)
- [Savitri](https://hekint.org/tag/savitri/)
- [Thom Ferrier](https://hekint.org/tag/thom-ferrier/)
- [Deception](https://hekint.org/tag/deception/)
- [Beware](https://hekint.org/tag/beware/)
- [Katherine Arnup](https://hekint.org/tag/katherine-arnup/)
- [Kathleen Blanchfield](https://hekint.org/tag/kathleen-blanchfield/)
- [advance directives](https://hekint.org/tag/advance-directives/)
- [Caring Connections](https://hekint.org/tag/caring-connections/)
- [ICU](https://hekint.org/tag/icu/)
- [Vincent Cracolici](https://hekint.org/tag/vincent-cracolici/)
- [Lord Howard Florey](https://hekint.org/tag/lord-howard-florey/)
- [Penicillin](https://hekint.org/tag/penicillin/)
- [visual arts](https://hekint.org/tag/visual-arts/)
- [medical training](https://hekint.org/tag/medical-training/)
- [Lauren smith](https://hekint.org/tag/lauren-smith/)
- [Lenore Montanaro](https://hekint.org/tag/lenore-montanaro/)
- [Enrique Simonet](https://hekint.org/tag/enrique-simonet/)
- [Anatomy of the Heart](https://hekint.org/tag/anatomy-of-the-heart/)
- [Leon Morgenstern](https://hekint.org/tag/leon-morgenstern/)
- [George Weisz](https://hekint.org/tag/george-weisz/)
- [Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec](https://hekint.org/tag/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec/)
- [Liam Farrell](https://hekint.org/tag/liam-farrell/)
- [Garrison Keillor](https://hekint.org/tag/garrison-keillor/)
- [Loretta Downs](https://hekint.org/tag/loretta-downs/)
- [Chrysalis](https://hekint.org/tag/chrysalis/)
- [Ted Hochberg](https://hekint.org/tag/ted-hochberg/)
- [Lynn Dion](https://hekint.org/tag/lynn-dion/)
- [Bertolt Brecht](https://hekint.org/tag/bertolt-brecht/)
- [Maggie Schwarz](https://hekint.org/tag/maggie-schwarz/)
- [Father's Day](https://hekint.org/tag/fathers-day/)
- [Mary Osborne](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-osborne/)
- [Garden of Eden](https://hekint.org/tag/garden-of-eden/)
- [Albrecht Durer](https://hekint.org/tag/albrecht-durer/)
- [diabetes mellitus](https://hekint.org/tag/diabetes-mellitus/)
- [Heller Altarpiece](https://hekint.org/tag/heller-altarpiece/)
- [Mary Pan](https://hekint.org/tag/mary-pan/)
- [POLST](https://hekint.org/tag/polst/)
- [Morven Cook](https://hekint.org/tag/morven-cook/)
- [Whose Life is it Anyway](https://hekint.org/tag/whose-life-is-it-anyway/)
- [Ravi Shankar](https://hekint.org/tag/ravi-shankar/)
- [Carlos Matos](https://hekint.org/tag/carlos-matos/)
- [Krishna](https://hekint.org/tag/krishna/)
- [Paul Rousseau](https://hekint.org/tag/paul-rousseau/)
- [Aldaron](https://hekint.org/tag/aldaron/)
- [Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield](https://hekint.org/tag/yvonne-pepin-wakefield/)
- [Peter Sullivan](https://hekint.org/tag/peter-sullivan/)
- [Pride and Prejudice](https://hekint.org/tag/pride-and-prejudice/)
- [Rae Brown](https://hekint.org/tag/rae-brown/)
- [anaphylaxis](https://hekint.org/tag/anaphylaxis/)
- [Raeford Brown](https://hekint.org/tag/raeford-brown/)
- [University of Kentucky](https://hekint.org/tag/university-of-kentucky/)
- [Ruth Deming](https://hekint.org/tag/ruth-deming/)
- [Shelley Sanders](https://hekint.org/tag/shelley-sanders/)
- [Susan Brown](https://hekint.org/tag/susan-brown/)
- [Buddha's Dogs](https://hekint.org/tag/buddhas-dogs/)
- [Beer Sheva](https://hekint.org/tag/beer-sheva/)
- [Shimon Glick](https://hekint.org/tag/shimon-glick/)
- [Zohaib Ahmad](https://hekint.org/tag/zohaib-ahmad/)
- [Carolus Horn](https://hekint.org/tag/carolus-horn/)
- [neurodegenerative diseases](https://hekint.org/tag/neurodegenerative-diseases/)
- [Therese Kwiatkowski](https://hekint.org/tag/therese-kwiatkowski/)