Dracula for Doctors

NOTE EDITORE

Exploring how medicine and psychiatry are portrayed in gothic literature, this engaging book illustrates how Stoker's famous work was influenced by nineteenth-century attitudes to disease and medicine and reveals many previously unknown links. Extracts from many sensational stories of the time are presented, and the role of doctors and their appearance and contribution to gothic fiction is investigated. The book covers topics such as asylums, their purpose, practice and patients, deadly diseases echoing the symptoms of vampirism, and the otherworldly allure of the undead. Dracula for Doctors is an entertaining and informative examination of how Victorian medical knowledge and culture informed Stoker's gothic masterpiece. This book suggests that Stoker, who had many medical connections, was able to link lurid stories of operations and asylums with fictional horror and suspense. Fans of gothic literature, as well as those of medical history and the supernatural, will find this an enjoyable read.

SOMMARIO

Preface; Foreword; 1. Body and mind; 2. Medico-gothic; 3. Stoker medical circles; 4. Asylum doctors; 5. The gothic asylum; 6. Renfield, the pet lunatic; 7. The other patients; 8. Diagnosing Dracula; 9. Dread, disease and the asylum; 10. Occult blood; 11. Holes in the skull; 12. Dead, alive or undead; 13. Therapeutic armamentarium; 14. Compelling eyes; 15. Beastliness; 16. Vivisection or animal torture?; 17. Demons and doctors; 18. Scientists and the supernatural; 19. And Dracula for dentists …; 20. Sex and death; Index.

AUTORE

Fiona Subotsky, Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has held the posts of Medical Director of the Maudsley Hospital in London, Honorary Treasurer and Honorary Archivist of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and President of the Medical Women's Federation. Apart from her professional achievements she has had a long-standing interest in history and literature and their medical connections, and has written and lectured extensively on related topics.

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9781911623298
• Dimensioni: 234 x 10 x 157 mm Ø 340 gr
• Formato: Brossura
• Pagine Arabe: 216