Medical Fictions and Healing Words: The Narratives of Eighteenth-Century Medical Men

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This thesis focuses on the narratives that formed around eighteenth-century medical professionals, and in turn those they created, to explore the purposes of medical story telling. Scholars such as Wayne Wild have centered their work on the relationship between doctors and literature, directing much attention towards exploring how eighteenth-century writers make use of the medical discourses and practitioners of the moment in their works of fiction. This has often resulted in a large critical focus on the suspicion that surrounded the medical trade, which Wild states permeated all decades of the eighteenth century and found expression in 'merciless' literary satire (Wild: 2006, p.19). However, the way in which fiction in turn influences the production of medical discourse demands further research. In seeking to remedy the gap in scholarship on medical writing, this thesis will explore the concept that the devices of fiction can be found within medical discourse and practice, in a way that Clark Lawlor states reveals a 'process of cultural feedback' (Lawlor: 2007, p.16). This will serve to highlight how doctors looked to move past the suspicion and satire, using the influence of eighteenth-century literature to aid the consolidation of the medical profession.