Medical Imagination

Sari Altschuler is Associate Professor of English and Associate Director of the Northeastern Humanities Center at Northeastern University.

• IntroductionChapter 1. RevolutionChapter 2. Yellow FeverChapter 3. CholeraChapter 4. DifferenceChapter 5. AnesthesiaConclusion. Humanistic Inquiry in Medicine, Then and NowNotesBibliographyIndexAcknowledgments

"The Medical Imagination is a thorough, deeply researched investigation into the role of literature in medical knowledge from Benjamin Rush at the end of the eighteenth century to Oliver Wendell Holmes and S. Weir Mitchell before the Civil War . . . Altschuler brings new works into the well-established field of literature and medicine and fresh insights to oft-studied works . . . a major contribution to historical and literary studies." (Journal of American History) "In this impressive book, Altschuler exemplifies the kind of critical and 'creative analytical thinking' that great thinkers have used to synthesise trends and concepts from a variety of disciplines. In doing so, she models the kind of interdisciplinary-and, yes, imaginative-approach to health and health care that is needed to revolutionise a fragmented system today." (Social History of Medicine) "In this ground-breaking work of historical research and reframing, Sari Altschuler foregrounds the central role of the imagination in the production of medical knowledge in nineteenth-century America." (Nineteenth-Century Literature) "In the landscape of modern academia, the humanities and medical fields exist on opposite sides of a disciplinary chasm. But this was not always the case, Sari Altschuler reveals in her imaginative, interdisciplinary work...Altschuler has identified a rich and persistent tradition in medical literature .Her readings showcase the smart ways that literary forms can be unwound to reveal engagement with medical and scientific thought." (Modern Philology) "The Medical Imagination is an impressively interdisciplinary work . . . The questions that the book raises about the past and present intersections of medicine and literature and the potential of interdisciplinary study are fascinating and pressing." (The Junto) "The Medical Imagination is an extraordinary intervention in the fields of the medical humanities, American literary studies, and American social and cultural history. Sari Altschuler has mastered and synthesized a large body of research, which she delivers with panache and passion. This multidisciplinary book puts her on the front lines of current scholarly discourse, teaching us the lesson that both medical history and literary history are the poorer for ignoring each other." (Laura Dassow Walls, University of Notre Dame) "This elegant, deeply researched, and original study engages the recent critical turn toward the intersection of literature and science, but what's more, it manifests the very synergy of humanism and factuality that it takes as its subject. Readers will find themselves equally drawn to the excitements of literary performance and the operating theater, and will be absorbed by complex work of the doctor-poets who plumbed the persistent mysteries of the human body." (Kathleen Donegan, University of California, Berkeley)