Mysterious Medicine: The Doctor-Scientist Tales of Hawthorne and Poe

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Mysterious Medicine is the first anthology to bring together Hawthorne's and Poe's doctor-scientist tales along with thoughtprovoking introductions and discussion questions that make the anthology suitable for classrooms, book clubs, and individual readers. Every reader will discover new dimensions to classic tales like Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" or Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" while also exploring lesser-known works like Hawthorne's "Dr. Bullivant" and Poe's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." As one would expect of America's dark romantics, the tales feature gothic elements such as crumbing mansions, chaotic madhouses, and pathological killers. They also include medical horrors like premature burial, plague, and poisonings at the hands of quacks, conveying the anxiety Americans felt about unethical experimentation, misunderstood diseases, and the rise of body snatching for anatomical study. Complementary text by L. Kerr Dunn helps situate each tale within the context of nineteenth-century medicine and draws parallels to health-related issues with which we struggle today.

The doctor-scientist stories collected in Mysterious Medicine provide evidence that the arts and humanities offer unique ways to explore the social, cultural, political, and personal forces that affect the way we suffer and heal.

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Kent State University Press
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