Healing Arts: Medicine in History, Culture and the Arts

Why did so many characters in classic literature believe rain could make you deathly ill? Today on The Medical Humanities Podcast - Catching Your Death: Infectious Disease in the Work of Jane Austen written and performed by me, Eve Elliot. 

This piece received an Honourable Mention in the 2021 Essay Contest held by the Hektoen Institute of Medicine's Journal of Medical Humanities, and was published that same year.

*I misspoke in this episode, and erroneously referred to a scene that occurs in the novel Sense & Sensibility, not the film version.

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Welcome to the Medical Humanities podcast. I’m your host, Eve Elliot.

You may not hear the words ‘medical’ and ‘humanities’ in the same sentence very often. In fact, at first glance they seem to represent two very different disciplines: one generally scientific and the other generally artistic. This podcast is about the many fascinating ways medicine intersects with history, culture and the arts. 

I’ll explore topics on the history of medicine, from the ancient Egyptians’ advanced medical knowledge, to the mistakes and misconceptions made by early physicians that persisted even into the nineteenth century. 

I’ll discuss how medical terminology developed and influenced our language, and explore the close connection between medicine and the Greek and Roman pantheon. I’ll relate tales of famous people in history whose behaviour or personality quirks may have had a biological cause, such as the ‘madness’ of King George III or the phantom pregnancies of Queen Mary I.

I’ll also look at art and classic literature and discuss the medical elements in them, and even discuss nursery rhymes like “Ring Around the Rosey”, which actually referred to the Black Death. 

Medicine has informed our fine art, literature, language and culture in many ways, and vice versa. Several famous physicians of the past, such as Dr. William Osler, believed that a classical education in the humanities was essential for rounding out the skill set of successful physicians. I’ll discuss doctors who were also poets, such as William Carlos Williams, and many other areas of medicine and the arts. 

If you're a history buff, a literature fan and also fascinated by medicine, like I am - join for me for an intriguing look at medicine in history, culture and the arts.

If you're enjoying these episodes, please like, comment and subscribe - and consider ⁠buying me a coffee!⁠