The Literary Companion to Medicine: An Anthology of Prose and Poetry

From the author of The Alarming History of Medicine comes the perfect gift and reference book for doctors and medical students: a unique and entertaining anthology devoted to literature about medicine.A sampling of the writing in The Literary Companion to Medicine includes: the unforgettable Bob Sawyer of Charles Dickens, Emile Zola's send-up of Lourdes, Thomas Mann's vanished world of Swiss TB sanatoria, Brillat-Savarin's ironic table-talk of nineteenth-century slimmers, James Boswell's disorderly sex life, and the hilarity of the Parisian music hall star Le Petomane.Diverse and delightful, this survey of prose and poetry vividly reflects the eternal fascination that human beings have with health, sickness, and healing, and with those who cure them. From Rabelais to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Erich Segal, Richard Gordon has amassed an impressive collection that shows how medicine is viewed in literature.