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 | Philadelphia

Gaining Admission

Elizabeth Blackwell changes the face of medicine.More

c. 1905 | Mohalis

Feng Shui

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

1747 | London

Cure-All

John Wesley throws some cold water on, well, everything.More

Charts & Graphs

Royal Treatment

How heads of state get their medicine.

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Italian poet and librettist Felice Romani.

Black and white photograph of English writer Virginia Woolf.

Oil painting portrair Michel de Montaigne in red robes and white collar

Persian philosopher and scientist Avicenna.

Painting of humanist and scholar Erasmus.

Color portrait of English poet John Donne.

Physician, heal yourself: thus you help your patient too. Let his best help be to see with his own eyes the man who makes himself well.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, c. 1884

Missing contributor image silhouette

Oil painting portrair Michel de Montaigne in red robes and white collar

Mimnermus & Montaigne

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