For Beginning Alchemists....

Hello fellow Alchemists of both Medical and Literary minds!

This blog is for you!

Literature and Science/Medicine takes many forms from Goethe to Sophocles, Sacks to Freud, Paget to Housel, Charon to Wald, and more. For me, it is with the illness narrative that my mind must contend, particularly from the point of view of the patient. Any medical narrative tells the story of how science through medicine upholds, literally, the human condition. Let's face it--we don't exist without medicine. What could we do with these frail bodies if not for the doctors and nurses who allow us to live--to ski, to boat, to hike, to walk across the street, to be in a crowded room with germy people, to go camping, to take a walk in springtime (allergies!), and to live in the frigid climes of the 45th latitude.

I may be a mad literary scientist, though I prefer angry to mad, but still...the play is not the thing, Mr. Shakespeare (though I love you dearly), no; it is the science behind the medicine and the literature that makes both accessible, relatable, to all.

Am I making you, bootless, perhaps a (desperate) housewife, churn? Or, it is my orbs upon the not-so-green?

If you're still not convinced, take a look at Autobiography of a Face, or the Cousin's classic, Anatomy of an Illness As Perceived by the Patient.

Also, I'm terribly interested in Zillah Einstein's polyversal theory of women's experiences--goes well with my own original (ahem) theory on women's illness narrative, which is what I call pathogynography.

Before I go I have to give mad props to Peter McL. Black, without whom, I would not exist--you go, Dr. B!!! And a shout-out for Dr. Korones--he's the hippest hipster neuro-oncologist this side of the Charles!

Yeah, baby, yeah! (a little Austin Powers never hurt anyone--and hey, even Austin Powers cared about med/lit--look at Dr. Evil...) :)

Until next time, fellow Alchemists!