Year: 1992
Type: article
Abstract: JAMES K. GUDE, MD,'s suggestions for a "humanistic li- brary" elsewhere in this issue' focus on an increasingly popular relationship: the use of literature, some of it written by physicians, to open "new worlds of thought, insight, emo- tion, and experience," as one author recently expressed it.2(Pxi)Indeed, Peschel's collection of critical essays, Medicine and Literature, closely examines medicine in literature, including the motivations of medical writers such as Rabelais, Chekhov, Williams, Schnitzler, and Selzer, who wrote elo- quently about the experiences of doctoring in past and recent times."Medicine and literature are united in an unremitting paradox: the need simultaneously to stand back from and yet to share in the struggle of human life," wrote Edmund Pelle- grino, introducing the work.2pxv"i)This is as it should be.Literature has traditionally been a part of the humanities, a field that embodies particular ways of thinking, judging, and articulating the sources and es- sences of our humanity.Far from being only the foundation for a number of scholarly disciplines, the humanities provide an operational approach to help all ofus understand our lives.Moreover, there is a social scope to such endeavors, since through the use of language they allow us to share our emo-
Source: PubMed Central
Author: G B Risse
Language: English
Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2176286984