Tag: Literary Essays
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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…
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Ernest Hemingway: Medical
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…
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Goethe: Medical
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,…
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Galen: Medical
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…
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Fyodor Dostoevsky: Medical
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…
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Denis Diderot: Medical
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,…
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Aristotle: Medical
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…
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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…
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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,…
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Medicine’s “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,…