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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The Garden of Death, by Hugo Simberg, 1896.

In the Midst of Death

By John Crowley

If the universe can’t outlive or transcend individual consciousness, does death even really exist?

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Map

Contagion

A brief history of malaria, leprosy, and smallpox.

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1889 | London

Collecting Symptoms

Jerome K. Jerome gives a self-diagnosis.More

1747 | London

Cure-All

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

c. 1760 | Michigan

White-Man Giver

Native Americans encounter a terrible sickness.More

Charts & Graphs

Tools of the Trade

Medical instruments throughout time.

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Photograph of English poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling.

black and white pencil drawing of Moliere in an ornate frame

Portrait of English essayist and critic Thomas De Quincey.

Let the young know they will never find a more interesting, more instructive book than the patient himself.

—Giorgio Baglivi, c. 1696

Emily Dickinson & William Styron

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