Physician's Anthology gathers twenty "storybooks from the physician's desk" into a capacious meditation on medicine as science, vocation, moral trial, and narrative occasion. Its selections range across fiction, memoir, biography, social observation, and medical reflection, juxtaposing dramatic scenes of diagnosis and care with broader accounts of public health, travel, professional ethics, and human vulnerability. The volume's interest lies in this formal variety: medicine emerges not mer...

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of a young protagonist who becomes entwined with a group of medical practitioners and their patients. As the cane passes from one individual to another, it reveals the complexities and challenges faced by those in the medical field, including the ethical dilemmas and personal struggles that come with the practice of medicine. Macmichael uses the cane as a metaphor for the burdens and responsibilities carried by physicians, exploring themes of ambition...

William Macmichael's "The Gold-Headed Cane" intricately weaves a narrative that explores the intertwined lives of characters shaped by the medical profession in the early 19th century. Utilizing a unique structure that blends autobiography, fiction, and philosophical musings, Macmichael crafts a tale rich in historical context, examining the evolution of medicine through the lens of personal and societal troubles. The story is encapsulated in the titular gold-headed cane, a powerful symbol...

William Macmichael, the author of the Gold-Headed Cane, was born at Bridgenorth, in Shropshire, in 1784, and after receiving his education at the grammar school of that town, entered as a student at Christ Church, Oxford, where, after receiving his degree of Master of Arts in 1807, he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine in 1816. In 1811, he was elected to the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which owed its foundation to the generosity of Dr. Radcliffe, about whom he writes so delightfully in ...

In "Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton," an anonymous author meticulously examines the intriguing world of historical imposters who claimed royal lineage, particularly focusing on figures such as Perkin Warbeck, who purported to be the murdered Prince Edward, and Arthur Orton, the notorious "Tichborne Claimant." This scholarly exploration combines rigorous historical analysis with a compelling narrative style that delves into the socio-political climates of England du...

For many millennia, the history of the world has been written by, for, and about men. This fascinating volume takes a different approach, offering brief biographies of dozens of women who have played a role in key world events. Learn more about the influence and impact of ladies like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Pocahontas, Marie Antoinette, and many others.

Samuel Johnson and James Boswell spent the autumn of 1773 touring the Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland. Both kept detailed notes of their impressions, and later published separate accounts of their journey. These accounts of their great tour contain some of the finest pieces of travel writing ever produced: they are magnificent historical documents and also portraits of two extraordinary personalities.In the vivid prose of these two famous men of letters, the Highlands and...

The two chief diarists of the age of Charles the Second are, mutatis mutandis, not ill characterized by the remark of a wicked wit upon the brothers Austin. "John Austin," it was said, "served God and died poor: Charles Austin served the devil, and died rich. Both were clever fellows. Charles was much the cleverer of the two." Thus John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, the former a perfect model of decorum, the latter a grievous example of indecorum, have respectively left us diaries, of which the...

`My object is to have you fit to live; which, if you are not, I do not desire that you should live at all.' So wrote Lord Chesterfield in one of the most celebrated and controversial correspondences between a father and son. Chesterfield wrote almost daily to his natural son, Philip, from 1737 onwards, providing him with instruction in etiquette and the worldly arts. Praised in their day as a complete manual of education, and despised by Samuel Johnson for teaching `the morals of a whore a...