Orwell's Cough
Many of our most beloved scribes struggled to conquer not just writer’s block but a bevy of medical maladies.
John Ross opens his surgery to consult with the likes of Milton, Swift, Melville, and Joyce, to debunk myths and probe muses, both literary and medical.
His tales are peppered with vivid vignettes of medical practice through the centuries, from Shakespeare’s cloaked visits to Southwark to cure his unsavoury rashes to the arsenic-and-horse-serum jabs given for Yeats’s fevers.
With novelistic flair and deep expertise, Ross reveals a wholly absorbing view of the writer’s life. Included in this fascinating medical investigation into some of our best-loved literary legends is:
The Brontës’ history of TB and Anxiety Disorder Herman Melville’s struggles with Bipolar and Traumatic Stress Disorders Shakespeare’s tremors and Mercury poisoning The abundant evidence to suggest Milton had Asperger’s The big question of whether writing 1984 actually killed George Orwell
John Ross is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a hospitalist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
His original investigation of Shakespeare’s battles with syphilis drew international media attention, including coverage on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. He is Canadian.
Click here to buy the book, Orwell's Cough
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