Hektoen International

11/14/2025

When Joseph Banks returned from his voyage of discovery to Australia, George Stubbs painted a kangaroo based on Banks' description of the animal, supplemented by inflating the skin that Banks had brought back with him. http://bit.ly/47BJZJK

11/13/2025

In Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Steel Windpipe,” an inexperienced young doctor saves the life of a young girl choking on a diphtheria membrane by cutting down on the trachea and inserting into it a silver tube. She made a full recovery. http://bit.ly/3dG3RzG

11/12/2025

Sir Thomas Lewis (1881-1945), the “father of cardiac electrophysiology,” studied the production and clinical features of various cardiac rhythm abnormalities. His 1913 book was the first on that subject. http://bit.ly/3JvZmdz

11/11/2025

In 2007, a statue of John Keats, one of the finest English Romantic poets, was unveiled in the grounds of the old Guy’s Hospital. In 1815, he became a medical student there and attended the anatomy lectures given by the renowned surgeon Sir Astley Cooper. http://bit.ly/47ytrCj

11/11/2025

The story of tonsillectomy can be traced to antiquity. As early as 2000 BC, Ayurvedic doctors used primitive tools; Cornelius Celsus (25 BC–50 AD) shelled out tonsils with his fingers; Galen of Pergamon used a wire snare (121–200 AD); and Paul of Aegina introduced a hook-like instrument (625 AD). Aetius of Amida (502–575 AD) limited himself to removing only part of the tonsils.

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 use...

11/10/2025

Sir Roger Bannister stands among the most famous neurologists in history, yet few associate his name with neurology. His fame rests not in medicine but rather in the fact that he was the first individual officially acknowledged to have run a mile under four minutes. A stone in Westminster Abbey acknowledges his dual achievements. http://bit.ly/3tqPM0V

11/10/2025

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Rhazes), born near present-day Teheran in 865, was a most learned Islamic philosopher & physician. Considered one of the fathers of pediatrics, he wrote the first book on childhood disease, differentiated smallpox from measles, and wrote on chemistry, physics, and biology. http://bit.ly/3I5GStT

11/08/2025

One of the first women to become a physician in Britain was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917). She received education on the wards as a nurse, and then established herself on the medical register through the Society of Apothecaries. She founded the London School of Medicine for Women on Marylebone Road. Her sister was the well-known suffragist Dame Millicent Fawcett. (L: Anderson/R: Fawcett). http://bit.ly/3HWYLeg

11/07/2025

The monastery at Guadalupe in Estremadura, founded in 1330 by King Alfonso XI of Castile, was also one of Spain’s oldest schools of medicine, particularly specialized in treating syphilis, for which they used fumigations, sudorifics, and mercury brought from the Almadén mines. http://bit.ly/3HYUmr9

11/06/2025

Sir Ronald Ross received the Nobel Prize in 1902 for discovering the malaria parasite in the stomach of a mosquito, thereby proving that malaria was transmitted by mosquitoes and laying the foundation for methods of combating the disease. http://bit.ly/3mWhj6p

11/05/2025

It is now accepted that Jenner learned from the surgeon John Fewster (1738-1824) that farmers who once had cowpox were immune to smallpox and could not be variolated against it. The milkmaid story is apocryphal, invented by Jenner’s biographer some years after his death. http://bit.ly/32DUde1

11/04/2025

The power of sound: An opera singer, challenged to shatter a wine glass with his voice, placed the glass on the mantlepiece and, standing about a foot away, began to sing louder and louder. The glass began to vibrate, then shattered! The singer was Jussi Björling. http://bit.ly/3JBVzGD