The Surgeon Evgueni Vasilievich Pavlov in the Operating Theater, by Ilya Repin, 1888. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Medicine

Volume II, Number 4 | fall 2009

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The Travelling Quack, by Tom Merry, 1889.

Preamble

The God in the Machine

By Lewis H. Lapham

Americans ask of medicine more than medicine can deliver—not only the cure for death, but also the gift of riches.

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Valentine Godé-Darel in a Hospital Bed, by Ferdinand Hodler, 1914.

Course of Illness

By Iain Bamforth

Reconsidering an epic of illness—Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.

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Map

Contagion

A brief history of malaria, leprosy, and smallpox.

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1847 | Tennessee

Civilization and Its Discontents

Dorothea Dix pleads for the creation of a new institution.More

c. 1905 | Mohalis

Feng Shui

Sinclair Lewis on the fine art of furnishing a doctor’s office.More

1847 | Philadelphia

Gaining Admission

Elizabeth Blackwell changes the face of medicine.More

Charts & Graphs

Pandora’s Box

The medicinal origins of illegal synthetic drugs.

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Photograph of Marcel Proust looking pensive.

Persian philosopher and scientist Avicenna.

There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.

—Sylvia Plath, 1963

Depiction of Greek philosopher Plato.

Black and white photograph of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud with cigar.

Plato & Sigmund Freud

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus

By Lapham’s Quarterly

But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More

The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.

DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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Terracotta funerary plaque, Greek, Attic, c. 520 BC.

The World in Time

Robert D. Kaplan

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More

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