Myth and (Mis)Information: Constructing the Medical Professions in Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century English Literature and Culture

Description: This book discusses the various cultural forms and literary works by which information, myth and misinformation on medical practices and personages were spread during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and some of the reasons for this, from authorial self-interest to scientific ignorance.

Review Quotes:

'Myth and (Mis)information expand our understanding of what counts as science, who gets to make it,
and how it circulates.'
SEL Summer 63, 3 Thematic Review

'Studies of the connections between literature and medicine of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have increased in number over the past few years but rarely do we see such in-depth studies of the lexical and textual mechanics of this intersection. The stimulating essays of Myth and (mis)information remind us that important debates about truth, meaning, and representation go to the heart of the social and global history of medicine and that if we are to understand the present, we must first take an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to the languages of the past.'
--Professor Andrew Mangham, University of Reading

'Myth and (mis)information is a must read for anyone in search of new insights into the modern medical marketplace, the circulation of knowledge, reader-reception of medical texts, and the shaping of medical culture. In a post-COVID era, it skilfully historicises the current anxieties we have about health misinformation. The book encompasses multiple aspects of medical writings within a cultural and historical perspective: women publishers, herbalists and healers, overlooked texts by medical celebrities, dog doctors, illness narratives of poxed men, medical branding and advertising, medical controversies on epidemics, vaccination or anatomy. A rattling good read!'
--Professor Sophie Vasset, Institut de Recherches sur la Renaissance, l'Âge Classique et les Lumières (IRCL), Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry