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I& #39;m writing a chapter on smell in an early 20thC novel, which I bought for £2. Its a great source to research the senses, hospitals and med education. But so are other novels, which med historians with English degrees could use in their teaching next year; here are some more.
1) The first module I taught was on the hist of occ. health and students could write essays on work hazards as depicted in novels. Some memorable ones used Kingsley& #39;s Water Babies, Alton Lock, and you can find almost anything in Dickens. Another good source was Zola& #39;s Germinal.
Favorites were Upton Sinclair& #39;s novels, including the Jungle, but he also wrote on the oil industry and mining. I always wanted a student to read Thomas the Tank Engine and examine the depiction of the & #39;accident& #39; and analyse this using Luckin and Cooter& #39;s History of the Accident.
2) Various aspects of & #39;madness& #39; could be examined in Jane Eyre, Mary Barton, Peer Gynt, The Yellow Wallpaper and Smollett& #39;s Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves. Allan Beveridge has written a lot about madness in lit and film https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/is-everyone-mad-the-depiction-of-mental-disturbance-in-the-work-of-dostoyevsky/93AA567E56C90363B561FCB6077AE6F8">https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...
3) Physicians are represented in numerous novels and contexts, including Middlemarch, Moliere, and Smollett of course, who was a naval surgeon, and country doctors feature in Balzac& #39;s and Bulgakov& #39;s novels. I enjoyed Davies& #39;s The Cunning Man. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315377872">https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9...
4) I have a student writing about disability in Gaskell& #39;s fiction (thanks @DrDavidMT); but disability features in literature from Oedipus to Morrison& #39;s Beloved. Other sources include Dickens, Collins& #39; Poor Miss Finch, Craik& #39;s Olive and Treasure Island. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-literature-and-disability/AB919D5944918503BBB8B4C036FB9450">https://www.cambridge.org/core/book...
5) Medical institutions feature as settings in novels, most famously in Mann& #39;s Magic Mountain, but also Solzhenitzyn& #39;s Cancer Ward, Stewart& #39;s Sanatorium (1930), and Maugham& #39;s short story & #39;Sanatorium& #39;. https://metode.org/issues/monographs/sanatoriums-in-contemporary-narratives.html">https://metode.org/issues/mo...
6) Antibiotics and magic bullets feature centrally in the plot of Lewis& #39;s Arrowsmith, Shaw& #39;s the Doctor& #39;s Dilemma, and Fulda& #39;s Das Wundermittel. Ilana Lowy and Robert Bud have both addressed these in their books and articles. https://www.shellsandpebbles.com/2013/10/13/sinclair-lewis-arrowsmith-why-everyone-should-read-this-1925-medical-novel/">https://www.shellsandpebbles.com/2013/10/1...
7) Childbirth and pregnancy feature in a number of novels that have been scrutinized carefully by historians. These include Tristram Shandy, Anna Karenina, Richardson& #39;s Pamela, Middlemarch, Sense and Sensibility and of course Martin Chuzzlewit. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2013/07/best-births-literature/313057/">https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/a...
8) Fashionable diseases have been studied recently by historians and might be explored in Burton& #39;s Anatomy of Melancholy, Swift& #39;s Gulliver& #39;s Travels and Johnson& #39;s Rasselas. https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_store/production/224604/68A47E52-116C-4E3E-9D78-9713AB6FAB7D.pdf">https://eprints.ncl.ac.uk/file_stor...
9) Epidemic novels have received much coverage recently and include Defoe& #39;s Journal of the Plague Year, but also less known novels like Porter& #39;s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, and Mary Shelley& #39;s The Last Man. Here& #39;s a good recent article on the latter https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/30/what-our-contagion-fables-are-really-about">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...
10) AIDS itself has generated a host of contemporary writings which students might engage with, including Kushner& #39;s Angels in America, Shilts& #39; The Band Played On, Brunt& #39;s Tell the Wolves I& #39;m Home, Push, by Sapphire, and Berger& #39;s To the Wedding for example. https://hekint.org/2017/02/01/aids-literature-a-cross-cultural-perspective/">https://hekint.org/2017/02/0...
