A Doctor's Dictionary Writings on Culture and Medicine

In this pithy abecedarium, doctor and poet Iain Bamforth takes a close look at the conflict of values embodied in what we call medicine—never entirely a science and no longer quite the art it used to be. Bamforth brings his wide experience of medicine around the world, from the high-tech American Hospital of Paris to the community health centers of Papua, together with his engaging interest in the stranger manifestations of medical matters in relation to art, literature, and culture—such as the mysterious “Stendhal’s syndrome,” which caused 106 tourists in Florence to be hospitalized due to an overload of sublime Renaissance art.

Iain Bamforth is a former hospital doctor, a general practitioner, a translator, a lecturer in comparative literature, and a public health consultant. He is the author of five books of poetry, including The Crossing Fee; The Body in the Library, an account of modern medicine as told through literature; and The Good European, a collection of writings on ideas and literature in European history.