Literature and Medicine

The study explores how Nigerian literary narrative reflect how people perceive their competence and value by exploring the complexities of self-evaluation and assessment of internal worth in sociocultural contexts. Okoh's drama, Thorny Path is qualitatively analysed in order to explore the social proclivities and psychological basis for character behaviour. The study is grounded in the fundamental tenets of self-esteem theory to imply that character behaviours are a result of the interaction of social forces whether physical or psychological, and not only inherited predispositions. The findings reveal that the main character's psychological moods show the large influence that internal perceptions can have on their interaction with the society. This example highlights the ability of drama to model and encourage behaviour change. By highlighting these dynamics, the study demonstrates the effectiveness of drama as a catalyst for social change and sustainable development, thereby providing change-makers with a useful tool.

The medical understanding of lovesickness in the Early Modern period emerged from the convergence of several intellectual traditions, including Hippocratic and Galenic diagnostics, medieval theories of amor hereos, and natural-philosophical problem literature. This article examines how Spanish physician-authors writing in the vernacular popularized and transformed medical knowledge about the bodily signs of erotic passion through the genre of the problem book. Focusing on works by Francisco López de Villalobos, Juan de Jarava, Agustín de Ruescas, and Alonso López de Corella, it analyzes the symptoms most frequently associated with lovesickness, such as alterations of the pulse, insomnia, sighing, emaciation, and changes in the eyes and complexion. By contextualizing these texts within both ancient and medieval medical traditions, the study demonstrates how problem literature functioned as a vehicle for disseminating complex medical theories to a broader readership. The conclusion shows how this medical lore could be reworked in a playful and ironic manner in literary texts such as La pícara Justina, where conventional symptoms of lovesickness become the object of parody.

Louis-Ferdinand Destouches, dit Céline, a abordé dans sa vie comme dans son oeuvre la grande diversité des aspects de la profession médicale : il a poursuivi des études médicales qui l'ont amené à exercer en tant que généraliste, médecin de dispensaire, officier de santé publique, metteur au point de médicaments etc. Sa carrière médicale a eu d'importantes résonances dans son oeuvre littéraire, pour le meilleur et pour le pire.

Dementia is commonly described as a disease of memory loss. That framing is not wrong, but it is incomplete. It does not describe the pattern in which different capacities give way, and without that pattern, families and clinicians lack a clear map of what can still be reached and why some moments of genuine connection persist long after others have gone. This paper applies Fractal Theory, a compact structural framework developed at Morgan Dynamic Research, to the experience of dementia. Using three core concepts, Scale, Memory, and Unity, it offers a model of what is happening neurologically and relationally, and it provides practical guidance for caregivers on how to scaffold the capacities that are failing. No mathematics is required. The goal is a clearer way of seeing and, from that seeing, a more humane way of caring.

By my reckoning we are now three decades into what is sometimes called the "a6ective turn." 1 We can mark its beginning with the publication of Brian Massumi's 1995 article, "The Autonomy of A6ect." An explicit aim of that essay was to argue that "a6ects hold the key to rethinking postmodern power after ideology." (p. 104) There he developed his claim that "the primacy of the a6ective is marked by a gap between content and e6ect"

Devine-ton qu'au lieu du vrai remede, Chaque docteur s'étudie & s'excede À faire emploi de pretendus bons mots Qui sont toujours ou médisans ou sots, Pour le plaisir de cette beauté fade, Qui gauchement par air fait la malade ; Que pour charmer l'ennui de Monseigneur, Pour amuser sa ridicule humeur, Le Médecin se fasse Nouvelliste De Bulletins soit Auteur ou Copiste ; Pour plaire enfin, qu'il joigne par état À l'habit noir les grimaces d'un fat ? 1 Les satires abondent au XVIII e siècle. Nombreuses sont-elles à railler la faconde des médecins. Les écrivains de théâtre en font un de leurs personnages favoris, tandis que philosophes et moralistes persiflent l'enjouement de leurs contemporains pour la médecine. Certains médecins, comme Bourdelon ou La Mettrie 2 , s'emploient eux-mêmes à dénoncer la pratique de leurs collègues, les accusant d'emprunter les armes des charlatans.

This article examines gender representations in Helene von Druskowitz's essay collections on Percy Bysshe Shelley (1884) and three English women poets (1885). Through literary analysis, it reveals how Druskowitz portrays Shelley as embodying both masculine and feminine traits, using his character to critique patriarchal society and advocate for gender equality. For the women poets-Joanna Baillie, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and George Eliot-Druskowitz uncovers a masculine element within their femininity, challenging traditional gender binaries. The study argues that Druskowitz's literary criticism serves to promote a nuanced understanding of gender in literature, reflecting broader turn-of-the-century debates on femininity and emancipation.

I thank the many teachers, friends, colleagues, students, and patients who have nurtured my thinking and writing throughout this project. I was inspired and directed in my studies of literature and of medicine by Harvey Chertok, Elliot Mishler, Joanne Trautmann Banks, and Steven Marcus, whose wisdom and example illuminated my way from the start. I have been fortunate to spend my academic and medical career at Columbia University, whose Departments of Medicine and English shared my time and cross-fertilized one another's imprint on narrative medicine. The dedication to patient care and willingness to come with me into literary exploration exemplified by

Contorno correndo a Praça da Liberdade, no centro de Kobani. Mal reconheço este lugar, tamanha a ruína em que se encontra. Aperto meu fardo contra o peito: sapatos de mulher e camisas de homem, telefones celulares dentro de caixas, livros de colorir só um pouco chamuscados. Até mesmo peças de bicicleta -tudo deixado nas lojas explodidas e tendas bombardeadas do velho souq. Olho por cima do ombro para ver se nenhum lojista está me perseguindo. Você não imagina a rapidez com que eles se movem, levando em conta seu tamanho, mas o fato é que nunca conseguiram nos pegar. Somos rápidos demais para eles. Eu me esgueiro em meio às sombras dos montes de entulho e dos prédios em escombros. Salto por cima de crateras de bomba e emaranhados de aço enferrujado, por cima de balas e cartuchos detonados. Sou Ghalib Shenu. Sou invencível. Meu primo Hamza Al-Khateeb corre à minha frente. Ele se afasta da praça e entra nas ruazinhas estreitas. Antes de segui-lo, paro sob a marquise de um prédio bombardeado para esperar meu irmão menor. -Vamos logo, Aylan -digo. Ele para de correr ao me ver esperando, com seu suéter vermelho em contraste vívido com as ruas poeirentas. Esfrega o nariz na manga. -Estou cansado, Ghalib -diz. Sua perna esquerda levanta uma golfada de poeira a cada passo: seu andar manco piora quando ele está cansado. Sua mão defeituosa se retorce, formando um pequeno gancho. -Endireita essa mão -eu digo. Hamza retorna até onde estou esperando. Meus músculos se retesam. Eu preferia que ele seguisse em frente. Hamza olha para Aylan. -Você não devia ter trazido ele -diz. -Cala a boca, Hamza. -Vão pegar a gente por causa dele. -Ele está indo bem. -Ele é lento demais. -Você não precisa esperar por nós. Mas Hamza espera. Protege os olhos do sol com a mão. Esquadrinha as ruas vazias, o céu vazio. Faz isso para tentar me pressionar. Os lojistas chegam rapidinho se nos veem roubando mercadoria avariada, mas ataques aéreos são ainda mais rápidos, rugindo dos céus para pulverizar tudo em volta. Quando Aylan nos alcança, tiro dele uma caixa de sapatos e duas caixas de celulares e coloco em cima das minhas coisas. Ficam com ele só um saco plástico com campainhas de bicicleta e algumas roupas leves. -Você leva isso -digo. Andamos devagar agora, com as sandálias rangendo sobre pedras irregulares e entulhos. Abrimos nosso caminho entre carros deformados e estilhaços de vidro. Quando a rua está bloqueada por escombros de um prédio bombardeado, Hamza escala os montes de tijolos chamuscados. Estendo a ele nossas mercadorias e em seguida puxo Aylan por cima de buracos e calombos de concreto. -Fique longe dos fios expostos -digo. Gordas moscas-varejeiras azuis voejam sobre buracos fétidos onde cadáveres apodrecem embaixo de ruínas fumegantes. Enquanto ergo Aylan por sobre os obstáculos, uma leve vibração faz estremecer os fios de aço enferrujados que afloram das lajes compactas. O metal canta e geme como mulheres lamuriantes. Meu coração bate mais forte. Agarro a mão de Aylan. Nós três nos detemos. Esperamos. Ficamos à escuta. Talvez não seja nada. Prendemos a respiração, em silêncio. Cacos de vidro presos ao caixilho de uma janela despedaçada retinem, vibrando como sinos distantes. Isso não é bom. A escuridão que me invade infiltra-se no meu sangue. Abraçamos com mais força nossos sacos de mercadorias. Ergo os olhos para o céu vazio. Aylan me encara, de olhos bem abertos. -Quero a Umi -ele sempre chama por nossa mãe quando está apavorado. -Eu quero é um abrigo! -diz Hamza. Puxo Aylan pela mão. -Vem comigo. O leve tremor já foi abafado pelo zumbido distante. Este se eleva. Meu peito se contrai. Agora saímos correndo, em busca de abrigo, e o pânico faz Aylan acelerar seu passo torto. As batidas de nossos pés no chão são o único som além do rugido crescente do ataque aéreo que se aproxima. Ele estilhaça o ar parado. Rasga a quietude das ruas vazias. Lanço-me através de uma fresta aberta no muro do que costumava ser a biblioteca central. Hamza e Aylan me seguem. Empurro Aylan contra a parede chamuscada embaixo de uma marquise de tijolos e argamassa caindo aos pedaços. Hamza rasteja até nós. Agachamos bem encolhidos num canto, com a respiração ofegante, o coração disparado. Aylan treme sob os meus braços. Talvez Hamza tenha razão. Talvez devêssemos ter deixado Aylan em casa, especialmente com um ataque aéreo iminente. A Umi vai me matar se ele for explodido. O ar se avoluma e estremece. Um flash de escuridão pisca diante do sol quando o projétil passa zunindo sobre nossas cabeças para estourar num terreno distante de onde estamos encolhidos. Um estrondo vibrátil passa por baixo, ou através, de nós. A própria terra parece sofrer uma convulsão. As paredes remanescentes da biblioteca estremecem e se sacodem, despejando poeira e pedras sobre nós. Em seguida faz-se um breve silêncio -a calmaria familiar depois de um ataque. O silêncio me invade, quente e insistente. Preenche por completo meus ouvidos latejantes. Ergo a cabeça. Espero o caos se revelar por inteiro. Hamza também endireita o corpo, com a cabeça branca de poeira. Aylan tosse e cospe poeira. Eu o puxo para perto e o coloco de pé para verificar se está tudo bem. Ele não chora nem diz coisa alguma. Encara o vazio com olhos arregalados, os cílios engrossados por um pó fino. Espano terra e poeira do seu cabelo escuro. Limpo seu rosto encardido. -Quero a Umi -diz Aylan. -Agora nós vamos -digo, aliviado por ver que ele ainda fala. Temos que seguir em frente antes que o tumulto que sempre se segue a um ataque aéreo tome conta do lugar. Pego Aylan pela mão. Escalamos para fora de nosso abrigo improvisado, espanando com as mãos o jeans e o suéter. Fitamos a enorme coluna de fumaça preta que sobe em espiral do lugar onde caiu a bomba mais recente. Ninguém abre a boca. A excitação da pilhagem já se esvaiu em nós, posta de lado pelo ataque aéreo e por uma súbita ânsia de chegar em casa. Juntamos nossas mercadorias espalhadas e seguimos nossa trilha entre lojas e escritórios destruídos. Edifícios deixam cair pedaços de paredes e lascas de telhados no nosso caminho. As pessoas aparecem, sozinhas ou em duplas, em construções destruídas em outros ataques. Elas emergem de aberturas com cortinas em lugar de portas. Observam-nos através de janelas arrebentadas. -Vão para casa, voltem para sua família -diz um homem. -Vocês não deviam estar nas ruas. Outros se empoleiram em balcões periclitantes cidade afora. O cheiro forte de combustível queimado nos atinge agora, desalojando o mau cheiro normal que impregna as ruas destruídas, de comida podre, canos de esgoto rompidos e corpos esmagados. -Caiu perto do estádio -diz uma mulher, de um quarto partido ao meio dois andares acima. -Perto do centro comercial -diz outra. Nós não conversamos e não paramos para escutar. Nosso corpo treme. Nossos ouvidos zumbem. Corremos de volta ao bairro curdo, onde moramos. Troco de mão as mercadorias que levo para segurar a mão de Aylan. -Estamos quase lá -digo. Forço-o a continuar correndo. Vejo a Umi e minha irmã, Bushra, antes que elas nos vejam. Elas correm ruela acima, espiando becos e travessas, parando para examinar vãos de portas, contemplando a todo momento a coluna de fumaça preta. O rosto da Umi está com a fisionomia alucinada ultimamente. Um repuxão de culpa me aperta a barriga. Bushra parece apenas aborrecida. Estou encrencado por ter deixado o bairro. Estou mais encrencado por ter ido junto com Hamza. E mais encrencado ainda por ter levado Aylan comigo. Talvez a Umi gostasse de ganhar um novo par de sapatos. Espio as caixas em meus braços, à procura de sapatos de mulher. Quando nos veem, elas param de correr. A Umi se planta no meio da rua, hijab cobrindo a boca, olhos vidrados em nós. Bushra me olha com cara feia. -Oi, tia Gardina -diz Hamza. -Oi, Bushra. Ele sorri como se não houvesse nada errado. Às vezes ele é descarado demais. Bushra fuzila Hamza com o olhar; a Umi o ignora. Seu olhar está fixo em mim. -Aonde você o levou? -pergunta ela. Ouço raiva e alívio, tristeza e terror, tudo misturado nas suas palavras. -Umi! -diz Aylan. Ele solta minha mão e corre para os braços dela. -Vejo você depois, Ghalib -Hamza me diz. E parte para casa. A Umi fica de cócoras e puxa Aylan para si. Ela o examina atentamente, passando as mãos por seu corpo empoeirado, sentindo com a ponta dos dedos o formato do seu crânio, fazendoo girar para erguer o suéter e checar sua coluna, sua pele macia e ilesa. Ele é seu bebê precioso que quase não sobreviveu para se tornar seu menino precioso. Ela acaricia seus braços, detendo-se um pouco no mais fraco, o esquerdo, e também nas pernas magricelas, tocando seus joelhos esfolados, demorando mais na perna manca. Só depois de se certificar de que ele não está ferido, apenas imundo e assustado, é que ela o abraça com força. Apertao como se nunca mais fosse soltá-lo. Inala o medo que emana dele junto com a sujeira e o pó. Apoia o rosto em sua cabeça, o hijab sujando-se com a sujeira do cabelo endurecido de Aylan, o vestido imprimindo-se de sua silhueta encardida. Durante todo o tempo em que ela o examina, eu os observo. Não digo nada. Aylan se submete à inspeção sem resistir nem questionar. É reconfortante para ambos aquele cuidado, aquele exame, aquele retorno seguro. Não faço parte disso. Sou velho demais para que minha mãe passe as mãos pelo meu corpo, mas, ao observá-los, uma coisa vívida e doce brota em minha memória. Sei que ela não tem o mesmo amor por mim, agora que eu surrupiei Aylan dela e o levei cidade adentro, onde ataques aéreos e balas de morteiro rasgam o céu como bolas de fogo e francoatiradores curdos se entocam em prédios em ruínas para disparar contra forças do Estado Islâmico e do governo. Eu nem olho para Bushra. Sei qual é a sua expressão e não quero ver. Ela me ignora. Minha irmã tem pouco tempo para mim. A Umi finalmente se vira para mim. Era só uma questão de tempo. -E você? -diz ela. Eu me preparo. Enfrento seu olhar. Permaneço firme. -Como ousa levar seu irmão...

Der Beitrag untersucht die Funktion von Rat und Beratung im Erzählen Hartmanns von Aue und ihr Verhältnis zu individueller Entscheidung und personaler Verantwortung. Ausgangspunkt ist die Beobachtung, dass das Wortfeld von rât sowohl in konkret dargestellten Beratungsszenen als auch auf metaphorischer Ebene erscheint. Anhand einer dichten Lektüre des ›Armen Heinrich‹ wird gezeigt, wie Entscheidungsprozesse der Figuren im Spannungsfeld von Rat, Gewissen und metaphorischer Bildkoordination auf komplexe Weise konzeptualisiert werden. Die Analyse berücksichtigt zudem die Überlieferungsvarianten des Schlusses und macht sichtbar, dass Beratungsszenen eine zentrale Rolle für die narrative Aushandlung von Verantwortung sowie für die Darstellung weiblicher Handlungsmacht spielen.

Hermann Hesse’s 1906 novel Beneath the Wheel (Unterm Rad) provides a literary portrayal of the physical and psychological consequences of intense academic pressure during adolescence. The novel follows Hans Giebenrath, a gifted student whose deteriorating well-being is accompanied by recurrent headaches, loss of appetite, sleep disturbances, dizziness, impaired concentration, temporary motor weakness, changes in temperament, and suicidal thoughts. Despite the persistence and severity of these complaints, his difficulties are largely underestimated by his teachers, family, and even a physician, who interprets them as a transient nervous condition associated with growth. Some of Hans’s symptoms resemble clinical features encountered in young patients with migraine and stress-related disorders, while the narrative also has an autobiographical dimension, recalling Hesse’s own experiences of educational distress and suicidal crisis during adolescence. Read from the perspective of narrative medicine, Beneath the Wheel illustrates how attention limited to symptoms may obscure the personal, emotional, and social circumstances of illness. The novel may therefore serve as a valuable text in medical humanities education, particularly for discussions of empathy, attentive listening, and patient-centred care.

This article examines Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1897) as an early literary expression of ideas that would later become central to environmental ethics. Particular attention is given to Dr. Mikhail Astrov, a rural physician whose concern for forests, biodiversity, climate, and future generations distinguishes him as one of the play’s most environmentally conscious characters. Through Astrov’s reflections on deforestation, the destruction of animal habitats, declining rivers, climatic deterioration, and the impoverishment of the landscape, Chekhov presents a remarkably prescient critique of human exploitation of nature. Astrov’s commitment to planting and preserving trees further introduces a sense of responsibility toward generations far beyond his own lifetime, while the maps he presents in Act III visually document the progressive loss of forested land over several decades. The article also situates these themes within Chekhov’s broader interest in nature and notes his familiarity with Henry David Thoreau’s Walden before revising The Wood Demon into Uncle Vanya. It concludes that Uncle Vanya offers an important literary precedent for later environmental thought by drawing attention to deforestation, ecological degradation, climate, and intergenerational responsibility long before environmental ethics emerged as a distinct philosophical field in the twentieth century.

From "English Malady" to "English Bile" An extensive range of elite and beau monde sufferer testimony, selectively mined from published and archived letters, diaries, journals, case narratives, and memoirs produced during the reigns of George III and George IV (1760-1834), demonstrates that the period saw the emergence of a veritable cult of biliousness. We illuminate key lay conceptions of biliousness in later Georgian society, critically adapting Charles Rosenberg's appeal to frame (bilious) diseases in terms of what they meant to sufferers and what wider social and cultural roles and functions they served. This article also seeks to respond positively to Roy Porter's call to provide a more comprehensive modeling of sufferer choices and responses than has been provided in previous scholarship. After introducing some of the chief concerns in British medical thinking as to the rise of late Georgian biliousness, we compare and contrast medical and lay views of the etiology of biliousness, emphasizing the terminological richness and enduring multi-causal modes of reference in sufferer narratives. The vigorous, fluid interface between the diagnoses of biliousness and nerves (and a range of other ailments) in this era is stressed, as is the mirroring in sufferer accounts of newly modish notions of biliousness, while changes and continuities in sufferer discourse are also charted over time. We demonstrate significant resistance and skepticism towards medical views in lay sources, focusing in particular on the rising critique of heroic evacuative medicine in sufferer narratives. This article proceeds to evaluate and explicate the extent to which, as James Makittrick Adair (1728-1802) alleged, patients "chose" to be bilious. We spotlight how and why sufferers accepted and internalized medical models of biliousness, and blamed themselves for their bile, or contrariwise complained about their treatments and practitioners and emphasized not the glamour but the seriousness, wretchedness, and disablement of their symptoms. Some sufferers are found to have foregrounded their specialness vis-à-vis the non-bilious, whether defending their modish sedentary lifestyles, or venting their bile for release, gratification, devilment, or for critical and dramatic effect. We contend that Georgian elites strongly reflected, refracted, and yet also resisted fashionable medical models

Ercan Kesal’s Hekimlik Sanatları (The Arts of Medicine, 2023) is a physician’s memoir that brings together personal experience, medical ethics, the history of medicine, and the medical humanities. Drawing on approximately 35 years of medical practice, Kesal traces his development from childhood and medical education through compulsory rural service, independent practice, hospital administration, and participation in professional medical organizations. The book’s 18 chapters combine autobiographical recollection with reflections on the changing character of medical practice and the relationship between medicine, society, art, and the humanities. Of particular relevance to medical ethics and the history of medicine are five recurring themes: the commercialization and consequent dehumanization of healthcare; violence against physicians and its relationship to structural problems within the health system; shortcomings in the teaching and institutionalization of medical ethics and history of medicine in Turkish medical schools; ethical concerns in psychiatry, including stigmatization and an excessive reliance on diagnostic technologies; and Kesal’s intellectual engagement with influential figures in Turkish medical history, including Beşir Fuad, Süheyl Ünver, and Nusret Fişek. More than 50 photographs and documents further give the volume the character of a concise autobiographical record of the author’s life and professional career. Kesal ultimately presents medicine as a humanistic practice grounded in the recognition of health as a human right and in an understanding of patients as persons rather than clinical cases or consumers. The book therefore offers a culturally grounded contribution to contemporary discussions of professionalism, medical ethics, and the humanities and merits wider international readership.

Haldun Taner’s Fazilet Eczanesi (The Virtue Pharmacy) provides a distinctive literary representation of Turkish pharmacy during a period of major professional and social transformation. Developed from Taner’s 1952 short story “Eczanenin Akşam Müşterileri,” the three-act play is set in a Bosphorus pharmacy in the 1950s and centers on the pharmacist Sadettin Dertsavar, whose attachment to traditional compounding pharmacy increasingly conflicts with the growing dominance of industrially manufactured medicines and changing commercial practices. This study examines the play as a source for the history of pharmacy while situating it within the broader development of Turkish pharmacy between 1950 and 1960. Using a retrospective approach, the research draws on Taner’s literary and dramatic works, archival records, contemporary pharmacy journals, reports of the Turkish Pharmacists’ Association, interviews, and other historical sources. The analysis shows that Fazilet Eczanesi reflects several characteristic features of the period, including pharmacist–patient relationships, individualized compounding, the increasing availability of proprietary medicines, competition between traditional and modern pharmacy practices, problems concerning pharmaceutical supply and profitability, and the changing social role of the community pharmacy. The play also contains numerous references to contemporary medicines and chemical substances; twenty-five such items are identified and evaluated in their historical context. Taner’s portrayal of the pharmacy as both a professional workplace and a neighborhood social center further illustrates the close relationship between pharmacists and the communities they served. Fazilet Eczanesi therefore demonstrates the value of literary works as complementary sources for reconstructing everyday professional practice and the cultural history of pharmacy in mid-twentieth-century Turkey.

Gynecologist and writer Prof. Dr. Selçuk Erez (b. 1936) holds a privileged place in Turkish literature due to his novels, short stories, and newspaper columns, which reflect his medical expertise. Among the subjects he primarily deals with in his books are the history of medicine and pharmacy, medicinal plants, and folk medicine practices. In his recent autobiographical novel entitled Kissing Was Forbidden, And So Did Thinking (2013), Erez writes about Ord. Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Gustav Liepmann (1878-1939) and Ord. Prof. Dr. Philipp Schwartz (1894-1977), Jewish academics that fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and began working at the Istanbul University School of Medicine, and discusses their contributions to Turkish medicine. In another book entitled Bodrum Beneath Chios (1996) that was based on the author's interviews with Ali Cengiz of Bodrum (1903-1987), Erez tells the Hippocrates stories that he heard from Ali Cengiz, as well as those folkloric remedies and medicinal plants used in the Bodrum region. In his book of gathered column writings, Embargos of Our Minds (1988), he offers information not only on a German pharmacy historian, Mr. Helmut Becker (1932-2009) and his doctorate thesis entitled "Medicine and Pharmacy in the Ottoman Fronts during the World War I," but also on the epidemics that changed the course of history. In this article, Erez's books' contributions to history of medicine will be discussed in comparison with current literature.

Aspirin® became one of the most widely recognized pharmaceutical products of the twentieth century, yet its cultural reception has received considerably less attention than its pharmacological and commercial history. This study examines representations of Aspirin® in Turkish literature to explore how literary texts can contribute to the history of pharmacy by documenting perceptions, patterns of use, and changing meanings associated with a medicine in everyday life. References to aspirin were identified through personal reading records, Turkish literary and general dictionaries, keyword searches of available electronic texts, and consultation with readers familiar with Turkish literature. From 89 identified references, 16 representative literary examples were selected according to their historical value, chronological range, and presentation of Aspirin® in different contexts. These examples were classified under five themes: Bayer and its Turkish competitors; medical uses; pharmaceutical forms and doses; adverse effects and misuse; and idioms, slang, and semantic extensions.

The literary evidence is considered alongside the history of Aspirin® in Turkey. Although the product was officially licensed in 1923 and publicly advertised from 1925, documentary evidence indicates that acetylsalicylic acid and Aspirin® were already known in the late Ottoman period, including a medical publication from 1902 and prescriptions and pharmaceutical records from the following decades. During the Republican period, Bayer’s intensive advertising and competition with domestic preparations such as Nevrozin Celal, Aspirol Necati, and Assipin Kenan contributed to Aspirin’s exceptional public visibility. Literary works reflect this commercial environment through references to Bayer as a marker of authenticity and quality and to competing Turkish products. They also portray aspirin primarily as an easily accessible analgesic and antipyretic used for headache, influenza, fever, and domestic self-treatment, sometimes together with traditional remedies such as linden-flower tea. References to tablets, children’s aspirin, effervescent preparations, and characteristic dosing practices provide further evidence of everyday pharmaceutical habits. Other passages record awareness of gastric irritation and deliberate overdose, demonstrating that literature also preserved perceptions of adverse effects and misuse.

The most distinctive indication of Aspirin’s cultural penetration is its movement beyond pharmaceutical usage into Turkish idiom and slang, where “aspirin” could signify a universal remedy, produce metaphorical expressions, or acquire meanings unrelated to medicine. Literary references overwhelmingly emphasize analgesic and antipyretic properties, while anti-inflammatory, antiplatelet, and other therapeutic uses are largely absent, suggesting that popular representations reflected the indications most strongly associated with the drug during its period of greatest cultural prominence. The findings demonstrate that literary texts can complement conventional pharmaceutical archives by preserving otherwise elusive evidence concerning medicine use, brand perception, self-medication, commercial competition, and popular language. Aspirin’s unusually extensive presence in Turkish literature illustrates how a pharmaceutical product can become embedded in collective cultural experience and supports the broader use of literature as a source for the social and cultural history of pharmacy.

Pharmacy ethics is a challenging area in pharmacy education, as teaching it requires special recognition of complex pedagogical approaches. In accordance with the findings of recent studies focusing on the use of humanities in medical education, literary fiction may be an avenue that could be successfully employed as a thought-provoking tool for teaching pharmacy ethics. The major benefits of this approach includes increased empathy and complex interpretive skills, suitability for case-based learning, and students' high level of interest in this method, as well as the promotion of patient-centered care, creation of cultural competence, and encouragement of professionalism among pharmacy students. The successful instruction of pharmacy ethics through carefully selected examples from literary fiction, possibly in an elective course or a special module, may be a promising step forward in modern pharmacy education.

Theriacs, complex compound remedies traditionally regarded as antidotes and panaceas, occupied an important place in the history of medicine and pharmacy from antiquity onward. Their elaborate preparation, numerous ingredients, and reputed therapeutic and sometimes almost magical properties contributed to their enduring cultural prestige. This study examines the historical role of theriacs in Ottoman medicine and pharmacy and traces their representation in Turkish literature from the thirteenth century to the modern period. Particular attention is given to the terms tiryak, macun, and nevruziye and to the ways in which their meanings developed beyond the strictly pharmaceutical sphere.

Theriacs formed part of the Ottoman medical tradition inherited from earlier Greek, Islamic, and Arabic medicine. Ottoman physicians were familiar with preparations associated with Mithridates, Andromachus, and Galen through authoritative medical works such as Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. Fifteenth-century Ottoman medical texts, including Sabuncuoğlu’s Mücerrebname and the anonymous Kitabü’l-Mühimmat, describe several types of theriac and their therapeutic indications. In subsequent centuries, theriac formulae continued to appear in Ottoman pharmacological works, palace pharmaceutical records, hospital registers, and pharmacopoeias. Records from Topkapı Palace for 1608–1767, for example, list numerous theriac and mithridatic preparations, illustrating their continued importance in court pharmacy. The enduring popularity of such remedies is also reflected in mesir macunu, the traditional compound electuary associated with Manisa and its spring festival, as well as in nevruziye, a sweet medicinal preparation produced in the Ottoman palace for the sultan and his entourage.

The literary history of theriacs demonstrates an equally rich semantic and symbolic development. The word tiryak appears among the earliest Turkish literary examples in the poetry of Yunus Emre and occurs in medieval medical texts primarily in the sense of an antidote. In Ottoman Divan poetry, however, it acquired metaphorical meanings related particularly to love, desire, healing, poison, and death. Poets such as Nev’i and Gevheri used the image of the theriac to express the impossibility of curing death or the restorative power of the beloved. Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname records numerous varieties of theriac and attributes to them an exceptionally broad range of healing properties. The term also entered Turkish proverbs and idiomatic expressions and was sometimes used in connection with opium consumption.

References to theriacs and related electuaries persisted into modern Turkish literature. Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu described the traditional distribution of mesir macunu in Manisa; Elif Şafak incorporated an elaborate theriac preparation into Pinhan; Mehmet Akif Ersoy referred to a medicinal theriac obtained from an aktar for a sick child; and Necati Cumalı associated the Manisa mesir tradition with Anatolian Dionysian mythology. Literary representations of nevruziye likewise preserve memories of Ottoman palace customs. Taken together, these examples demonstrate that theriacs survived far beyond their original pharmaceutical function. Their presence in medical texts, popular customs, idiomatic language, poetry, travel writing, memoir, and fiction reveals the close interaction between pharmaceutical practice and literary imagination in Turkish cultural history.

Pharmacy and the figure of the pharmacist occupy a recurrent place in Turkish literature, and Orhan Pamuk’s fiction offers a particularly rich body of material for examining how pharmaceutical spaces, objects, medicines, and professional identities are represented in literary form. This article surveys references to pharmacies, pharmacists, and medicines in several of Pamuk’s works and considers their value for the cultural and social history of pharmacy. Particular attention is given to Cevdet Bey and His Sons (1982), which contains some of the most substantial depictions of pharmacy in the late Ottoman period. In this novel, Pamuk refers to actual pharmacies in Pera, evokes the then-common practice of physicians consulting patients in pharmacy back rooms, and describes pharmaceutical products, mineral waters, medicated wines, and elixirs displayed or sold in these establishments. Other works broaden this representation across different historical settings. The Silent House (1983) introduces a female pharmacist whose professional identity produces social misunderstanding; The White Castle (1985) portrays a Venetian captive who claims to be a physician-apothecary and improvises remedies; The New Life (1994) presents pharmacies as commercial urban spaces selling medicines alongside miscellaneous goods; and Snow (2002) includes a provincial pharmacy whose window advertising and pharmacist character contribute to the local atmosphere. In The Museum of Innocence (2006), invented or allusive pharmaceutical products become part of Pamuk’s material culture of memory, while Fragments of Landscapes (2010) recalls pharmacy windows filled with medicine boxes, colored bottles, jars, and advertisements. Taken together, these passages show that Pamuk uses pharmacies not merely as background settings but as historically resonant urban spaces that reflect changing patterns of medical practice, consumption, commerce, and everyday life in Istanbul and Turkey. His work therefore offers valuable literary evidence for the study of pharmacy within the broader framework of medical humanities and pharmaceutical history.

Orhan Pamuk’s fiction frequently incorporates pharmacies, pharmacists, and pharmaceutical settings as elements of personal memory, family life, and urban culture. This article examines the representation of pharmacy in Pamuk’s 2016 novel The Red-Haired Woman (La femme aux cheveux rouges). The novel centers on Cem Çelik, the son of a pharmacist, whose relationship with his father, Akın Çelik, provides an important psychological background to the narrative. His father owns the Hayat Pharmacy in the European part of Istanbul, and Cem’s childhood memories of the pharmacy—including the smell of medicines, night duty, customers, and his father’s political conversations—form some of the novel’s early scenes. Following his father’s disappearance and the closure of the pharmacy, Cem begins working in a bookshop, develops an interest in literature, and later becomes an apprentice to a well digger. Pharmacy reappears later through Cem’s wife, Ayşe, a graduate of Istanbul University Faculty of Pharmacy who does not practice the profession but works in her husband’s construction company. Through these characters and settings, The Red-Haired Woman provides another example of the recurring presence of pharmacy and pharmacists in Pamuk’s literary world, linking pharmaceutical spaces with memory, family relationships, professional identity, and the broader development of the novel’s characters.

Medical humanities have increasingly become integrated into medical curricula, particularly in Western countries, with the aim of fostering empathy and broadening students’ understanding of illness and care. However, the effectiveness of medical humanities education may be influenced by the cultural backgrounds of students and by the cultural assumptions embedded in teaching materials. Drawing on three years of teaching experience at a Turkish university with a culturally diverse student body, this article highlights substantial variation in students’ engagement with course content and expected learning outcomes. Such differences may partly reflect the use of educational materials that are insufficiently adapted to local cultural contexts. Western concepts in medical humanities and bioethics, including autonomy and truth telling, may conflict with values held in other cultural settings, while attitudes toward end-of-life care, abortion, and genetic engineering may also vary considerably. Medical humanities educators should therefore select course materials with careful attention to cultural diversity and local experience. Incorporating culturally relevant perspectives may help reduce conflict, support empathy, and enable students to recognize culture-specific biases affecting healthcare delivery in their own societies.

Mark Haddon’s 2003 international bestseller, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a novel about a 15-year-old, autistic boy Christopher Boon, who investigates the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog. Some critics interpret this text as a “liberatory model of disability” since “Christopher’s disability is never named,” thus suggesting that “disability is in the eye of the reader, not the character itself” (Ray, 2013, para.1). This paper will argue that the opposite is true. I will show that Haddon’s “simplistic, vile [and often] ridiculous” (Yergeau, 2018, p.89) portrayal of Christopher is not a “critique of ableism,” but rather ableism on its own right. It’s the kind of novel that attempts to explain autistic people to the larger audience but ends up reinforcing the stereotypes without directly referring to the protagonist’s diagnosis. Haddon’s choice to ignore “the elephant in the room” might imply that autism is a source of shame or embarrassment rather than an integral part of the protagonist’s identity. By contrasting Mark Haddon’s fictional representation of autism to the authentic autobiographical voices that appear in Naoki Higashida’s The Reason I Jump, Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay’s How Can I Talk When My Lips Don’t Move, and Donna Williams’ Nobody, Nowhere this paper will demonstrate that the protagonist Haddon portrays in his novel is far from being a reliable, nuanced representation of an autistic teenager and should not be described as such especially when the novel is taught in Israeli high schools.

Abstract:El presente artículo examina cómo el discurso médico usado por Gabriel García Márquez en El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (1958-61), revela la preocupación del autor por el estado físico y mental del pueblo colombiano. Una nueva mirada a El coronel, enfocada en el lenguaje médico usado por el autor, ayudaría a contestar las siguientes preguntas: ¿Es Colombia un país enfermo? ¿Cuáles son sus síntomas? ¿Es posible curarlo? ¿Quién puede encargarse de su mejoría y convalecencia? A pesar de la excelente contribución de la crítica, queda todavía ignorada la hipótesis según la cual el lenguaje médico empleado por García Márquez en El coronel sirve cómo estímulo literario para reflexionar sobre el estado de los colombianos. Este estudio decodifica el lenguaje clínico, saturado de simbología socio-política a través del cual García Márquez presenta un microcosmos de los problemas de gobierno, opresión, censura, inmovilidad burocrática y corrupción. La originalidad de El coronel reside en presentar clínicamente el estado de los ciudadanos colombianos de una manera totalmente nueva con respecto a la tradición literaria precedente. García Márquez combina sus dos pasiones, la literatura y la medicina, para crear una obra totalmente novedosa en la conjunción de estas dos maneras de ver la sociedad. García Márquez presenta un pueblo afectado por desigualdad económica, censura y violencia, esto es, un pueblo enfermo que necesita un camino para obtener salud. La fuerza de voluntad, una actitud increíblemente positiva y la solidaridad dentro de la comunidad se presentan como los remedios para curar la enfermedad suya y la de Colombia.

Les traduccions catalanes d'obres de medicina que es poden datar a finals del segle XIII i inicis del XIV proporcionen un context de gran importància per a estudiar l'opció de Ramon Llull pel vulgar no únicament per compondre obres literàries sinó també per escriure tractats doctrinals. Les recerques dels últims 30 anys han permès situar, i resituar, moltes traduccions indatades en aquest període, i també descobrir quina mena d'obres es va triar i perquè, qui les va impulsar i amb quins objectius. Aquest treball n'aporta un estat de la qüestió actualitzat. /// The Catalan translations of medical works that can be dated to the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries provide a context of great importance for studying Ramon Llull’s choice of the vernacular not only to compose literary works but also to write doctrinal treatises. Research over the last 30 years has made it possible to situate, and resituate, many undated translations in this period, and also to discover what kind of works were chosen and why, who promoted them and with what objectives. This work provides an updated state of the art on the subject.

Este artigo pretende enfocar o diálogo intertextual transgressor e subversivo que Moacyr Scliar estabelece com a Bíblia na realização de seu conto "As pragas". Essa narrativa apresenta uma estrutura contemporânea e pós-moderna ao eleger a paródia e a ironia como principais elementos de seu discurso ficcional e herético.

Although graphic medicine has garnered considerable attention, it remains largely Eurocentric with contributions from the Global South frequently overlooked. Particularly, graphic medical narratives from India have been notably underrepresented in academic scholarship. Addressing this gap, this article examines graphic medical narratives from India through Ian Williams’s expansive definition of graphic medicine, which encompasses practices ranging from illness memoirs to educational comics, academic papers, gag strips, graphic reportage, and therapeutic workshops. Building on recent calls to “provincialize graphic medicine,” the article argues for repositioning the field beyond its Euro-American framework by situating it within the cultural and linguistic complexities of the Global South. Such an approach foregrounds questions of (un)translatability, cultural specificity, and formal/commercial differences. By mapping the diverse expressions graphic medicine takes in India, the article emphasizes the need to catalog creative practices, document publication histories, and develop systematic archives that preserve and critically engage the work of Indian graphic medical narratives.

Clifford Whittingham Beers's A Mind That Found Itself (1908) was the literary spark that inaugurated the amorphous mental hygiene movement in the first decades of the twentieth century. Despite the book's relative obscurity in discussions of American literature, historians of psychiatry still invoke the idea that it is an "autobiography of genuine literary merit," suggesting that the link between the mental hygiene movement and the literary imaginary was not coincidental—it was constitutive. This paper provides a new aesthetic and political history of the idea of "mental health," pushing back against the prevailing view that Beers's book is a well-meaning instance of turn-of-the-century liberal progressivism that prioritized the patient's voice. It argues that Beers and his mental hygiene movement instead localized the health of the nation in the individual's mental health, giving aesthetic form to later practices of bio-psychiatric nation-making.

The Libellus de confortatione visus secundum sex res non naturales attributed to Arnau de Vilanova Resum: En aquest article farem una anàlisi del Libellus de confortatione visus secundum sex res non naturales atribuït a Arnau de Vilanova a partir de la tradició manuscrita que es conserva (Vaticà, Innsbruck i Munic), juntament amb la còpia de Metz, actualment perduda però que coneixem gràcies a l'edició de Pierre Pansier de 1903. Amb aquesta informació abordarem la problemàtica de l'atribució de l'obra a Arnau de Vilanova. Mots clau: Arnau de Vilanova, Libellus de confortatione visus, malalties dels ulls, reforçament de la visió, fi losofi a natural.

Trauma literature talks about the experience that goes beyond a person's mental framework that continues to haunt them. The novel uniquely presents the psychological impact of trauma through the effects of transhistorical trauma. The present paper sheds light on the transhistorical trauma through various traumatic events such as 'casual racism' that happens in the life of Sethe, the protagonist. It depicts the trauma that all the characters face, taking up the scenario of a victim-turned perpetrator showing how trauma can affect people in extreme circumstances proving them to be neither innocent nor guilty.

This article examines how sufferers experienced, understood, and expressed themselves as bilious, focusing on the late Georgian era when the disease became one of the most fashionable and oft diagnosed amongst the elites. We show that responses to bile were more complex, varied, and less credulous than contemporary diatribes and subsequent historiography imply. Nonetheless, we foreground the socioculturally negotiated elements of the malady rather than its "reality." Applying Rosenberg's framing diseases model reveals biliousness as one of the most problematic conditions to frame, but one of the most malleable to self-fashion. We demonstrate how Georgian Britons found functionality in their bile and "performed" being bilious. Articulate, literate sufferers deployed a range of strategies to vent or master their bile, or to render it social and serviceable, deriving various compensatory "secondary gains." We illuminate their variable success in reifyi...

In recent decades, world-renowned female graphic artists have turned to an autographical mode of expression to elaborate their own family history, and in the process have challenged the androcentric gaze that has dominated graphic narratives as well as the scholarship on the ninth art. As Hillary Chute points out in Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics, the innovative aspect of this medium has proved particularly apt for the articulation of life stories. As a hybrid of visual and verbal elements, the genre favors a "new aesthetics emerging around selfrepresentation" (Chute 2), which allows artists to address traumatic world events as well as personal histories. Freed from the limitations of commercial comic strips, graphic novels that have attracted international critical attention-such as Art Spiegelman's Maus, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, to mention only a few-express autobiographical themes that link the personal life story

This concise and relatively stylish volume explores relationships between religious and scientific discourses concerning perceptions of disease in the Atlantic world. Within Doctrine and Disease, discussions of treatments and the progress of specific diseases are explored through how diverse groups understood the relationship between faith and science in the specific production of curatives and collective treatments.

Many of those teaching at the intersection of medicine and the humanities are siloed within institutional spaces. This essay recounts the teaching of Sarah Manguso's The Two Kinds of Decay to students across different academic contexts and considers what we can learn when we put classrooms in conversation with each other. This essay argues for the value of texts like Manguso's, which explicitly hold the narrating subject and form of illness narrative up for critical examination. The authors call for more collaborative teaching, which has special resonance in the health humanities, where conversations already depend on bridging disciplines and listening to the stories others can tell.

Something has shifted in medicine, and we are still trying to understand its implications. Artificial intelligence can now interpret a retinal scan with greater accuracy than most ophthalmologists. Algorithms flag sepsis before the nurse at the bedside does. Large language models draft discharge summaries, summarise referral letters, and answer patient questions at two in the morning. The efficiency gains are real. And yet, none of this touches what a patient actually needs when they are
sitting across from a physician, frightened and uncertain.

Publisher's description: Theatre and Medicine offers a tour of this interdisciplinary terrain. Organized into four distinct topics, each represents crucial ways of understanding the theatre-medicine relationship. From discussions on the somatic underpinnings of the body that medicine and theatre take as their subject through to the historical association of theatre and contagion, and the pervasive role of doctors and the practitioners of alternative medicine in Western theatre and role of patients on and off stage. Together, this brief study considers the institutional contexts of theatre's medical performances in the early twenty-first century.

El presente documento ofrece un análisis de Sanditon, la última novela de Jane Austen, escrita en 1817 y dejada inconclusa debido a su muerte. La obra representa una evolución en la narrativa de Austen, alejándose de los tradicionales enredos matrimoniales para enfocarse en una aguda sátira sobre la especulación comercial, la invención del turismo moderno y la hipocondría. A través de la mirada pragmática de la joven Charlotte Heywood, el texto expone las excentricidades, la ambición económica y las falsas enfermedades de los habitantes y visitantes de un naciente balneario costero inglés.

Hand grip strength is commonly used to assess muscular strength and is increasingly recognized as an indicator of nutritional status. This study analyzes the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and hand grip strength (HGS) in sedentary university students. This cross-sectional, observational study included 54 undergraduate students from the Department of Health Universitas Airlangga, selected using a convenience sampling method. BMI was calculated using Quetelet’s formula, while hand grip strength was assessed in the dominant hand using a Camry digital hand dynamometer, measured in kilograms. Statistical analyses were conducted using the SPSS Statistics program. Participants were categorized into four groups based on BMI classification concerning HGS. The mean BMI values were as follows: underweight (17.05±1.104), normal weight (20.58±1.426), overweight (23.74±0.350), and obese (28.58±3.868). The mean HGS values were: underweight (28.67±9.885), normal weight (26.76±5.796), overweight (32.23±9.085), and obese (34.95±9.659). The Spearman correlation test between BMI categories and HGS was not significant (p > 0.05). Males and females had mean BMI values of 24.33±4.765 kg/m² and 22.14±4.871 kg/m², respectively, with corresponding HGS values of 38.68±7.287 kg and 24.56±3.304 kg. The Spearman correlation test between BMI categories and gender was also not significant (p > 0.05). In conclusion, no significant correlation was found between BMI and HGS among sedentary university student.

This paper explores the intricate power dynamics in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights through the lens of Nelly Dean, the novel's primary narrator. Far from being a passive observer, Nelly Dean plays a complex dual role as both participant and storyteller, navigating multiple positions of authority and subordination. The article argues that a dichotomy marks her role in the novel. While she appears subservient as a housekeeper, she simultaneously wields narrative and social control, shaping key events and readers' perceptions. By employing Michel Foucault's theory of power and discourse, this study examines how Nelly Dean mediates, manipulates, and maintains power relations among characters. Drawing on textual analysis and a critical literature review, the paper repositions Nelly as a pivotal figure whose layered subjectivity subverts traditional binaries of master/servant, active/passive, and truth/deceit.

This article examines a key preaching scene in Toni Morrison’s novel
Beloved against the backdrops of performance and performativity within
the Black Protestant homiletic tradition specifically, and Afro-diasporic
religious ritual and belief more broadly. The art of preaching, or homilet-
ics, generally refers to the processes involved in interpreting biblical texts
and presenting those interpretations to a congregation through practices
including but not limited to storytelling, rhetorical argument, and poetics.1
Beloved depicts the preaching of Baby Suggs, an elderly woman who cannot
read Christian scripture yet performs sacred interpretations when she “calls”
for the recently freed African American community in nineteenth-century
Ohio. By comparatively analyzing the printed (1987) and audiobook (2007)
versions of Beloved through a method of interpretation attuned to issues of
performance and effectiveness, this essay shows how Morrison not only de-
scribes Black preaching as a performative event but makes the event manifest
through written and spoken techniques. I contend that Morrison’s visual
and sonic presentational maneuvers mirror Baby Suggs’s homiletics, and
that both character and author encourage audience engagement in order
to call forth collective experiences of embodied love and imagination.

A partir dos livros Retalhos da vida de um médico, O homem disfarçado e Domingo à tarde, do escritor português Fernando Namora, nos quais os protagonistas são médicos, refletimos sobre: ficcionalização da atividade clínica; interseção dos conhecimentos individuais do doente e universais da doença (convocando o conceito lukácsiano de particularidade); significados e preconceitos que à doença se poderão associar (pessoal e socialmente); estados psicológicos e emocionais dos doentes e dos médicos (partindo nestes da confissão e autoanálise); anamnese e interação médico-paciente; contributo da enfermidade para a queda das máscaras dos que com ela têm de lidar, pacientes e clínicos.From the books Retalhos da vida de um médico, O homem disfarçadoand Domingo à tarde, from the Portuguese writer Fernando Namora, in which the protagonists are doctors, we reflect on: the fictionalization of clinical activity; the intersection of the patient`s individual knowledge and the universal knowledge of...

This essay explores research on teacher and middle leadership. It begins by considering the definitions and the conceptual overlap between teacher and middle leaders and briefly considers the volume and sources of research information. Six areas in which trustworthy claims can be made about the roles are then explored: teacher and middle leader definitions, impact, interventions, leadership focus, identification, and supports/hindrances. The essay concludes by considering policy recommendations, practice recommendations and future research directions.