Health and illness in Shakespeare
Sylvia Morris
January 30, 2012
Shakespeare’s interest in all things medical is well known, and Sujata Iyengar’s book Shakespeare’s Medical Language – A Dictionary, published by Continuum, is a successful addition to the literature on the subject, both a fascinating read and a valuable reference work. She casts her net wide, exploring Shakespeare’s own references to medical matters, the work of medical practitioners, symptoms, cures, and remedies, and the development of theoretical medicine.
Part glossary, part encyclopaedia, the book’s written in an easy-to-follow style, cross-referencing words with their own entries printed in bold, encouraging the reader to flip around the book. Most entries are in three parts: a medical description of the subject, Shakespeare’s references to it, and contemporary sources.
You could use the book as a glossary as you read a play: the entry on falling-sickness, for instance, mentioned in Julius Caesar, links the word with others used by Shakespeare: apoplexy, dizziness and palsy. It then directs you to three pages on epilepsy, lists other plays including sufferers (Othello and Macbeth), and quotes the description of Julius Caesar’s epileptic fit.
Starting from Shakespeare’s words, moving from them towards modern definitions, has many advantages. Iyengar doesn’t attempt to link his every mention of illness to a specific modern one, nor does she assume that Shakespeare’s use of medical terms is consistent. Importantly, there is no patronising assumption that twenty-first century western medicine, which separates body and spirit, has all the answers. We may still have much to learn from less sophisticated societies, including Shakespeare’s.
(http://theshakespeareblog.com. Adaptado.)
In the fourth paragraph, the expression “Starting from” has the same meaning as
