From Medicine to Manuscript: Doctors with a Literary Legacy [Hardcover]

Beginning with Maimonides in the twelfth century and ending with Siddhartha Mukherjee in the twenty-first, this masterful treatise examines the lives and output of sixty-five physician writers. It is a sparkling treasure trove of information about each ones medical career, and lucid commentary on their literary contributions. Meticulously researched and succinctly written, it should have a permanent place in every bibliophiles library.Patrick Taylor, MD, Professor Emeritus?and New York Timesbestselling authorWhy are so many physicians also writers? What began as a personal and professional question has produced a collection of engaging biographical sketcheslife stories of very diverse physicians who have penned poetry, short stories, novels, plays, essays, and histories. With the skills of a natural storyteller, the author explores some well-known examples and a number of surprises. The effect of reading these life stories together gives an answer to the question of why doctors write. It is a natural and necessary part of medical practice. Science is central to the practice of medicine, and so are stories. We are the stories we hear and the stories we tell.?Stephanie Brown Clark, MD, PhD, associate professor and director at the Division of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, University of Rochester School of Medicine and DentistryThe biographical vignettes in Seymour I. Schwartzs marvelous new book, From Medicine to Manuscript, affirm my bias that there is no obligatory chasm between the humanities and the medical sciences. Even more convincing, however, is Schwartzs life and his lifetime of intellectual productivity itself.?Glenn D. Steele Jr., MD, chairman of xG Health SolutionsSchwartz has given us a wonderful compendium, a labor of love, of physician writers through history. But it is so much more than thathe attempts a synthesis, a quest for a common mechanism. The breadth of his literary scholarship might make you forget he is a legendary surgeonlc)