Items related to Kore: On Sickness, the Sick, and the Search for the...
Synopsis
“An eminent Polish physician reflects on his lifetime practice of medicine . . . A profound celebration of the human spirit.” —Kirkus Reviews
There is a grand tradition of physicians who are also great writers and philosophers. When his first book, Catharsis, was published in English, critics from Seamus Heaney to Czeslaw Milosz stood to applaud. Now Andrzej Szczeklik has followed with an ever deeper and more accomplished book.
It has become unfortunately rare for a scientist or doctor to find his grounding in a broad understanding of literature and the humanities. But in Kore, the author insists that only with a curiosity thoroughly at home in both worlds can one expect to discover what we should mean about sickness and about the soul. No tedious academic, Szczeklik writes with the grace of a poet and the ease of a fine storyteller. Anecdotes drawn from a personal immersion in art, music, and literature are woven with reports on experimental medicine and daily clinical experience. From DNA and the re–creation of the Spanish Flu virus, to contemporary research in genetics, cancer, neurology, and the AIDS virus, from Symptoms and Shadows, to Dying and Death, to Enchantment of Love, every chapter of this book is alive and engaging. The result is a life–affirming work of science, philosophy, art, and spirituality.
“No medical experience necessary: readers need only approach with a love of the human body and an understanding of how it relates to emotion and story . . . Readers may find it difficult to keep up, but few are likely to forget this book.” —Publishers Weekly
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About the Author
Andrzej Sczczeklik is chairman of the Department of Medicine at Jagiellonian University of Poland. He has received numerous awards from the Royal College of Physicians, the Lancett, and the Foundation for Political Science. His previous book, Catharsis, was published in English in 2005 by The University of Chicago Press.
Reviews
The profession of medicine is both an art and a science. Eloquently elaborating on the symbiosis of medicine and the humanities, Polish physician Szczeklik mulls over the many connections between the worlds of science and medicine and the spheres of art, literature, music, philosophy, and mythology. A sampling of the figures featured in the book—Apollo, Mikhail Bulgakov, Thomas Hardy, Orpheus, Paracelsus, Pope John Paul II, Saint Teresa, Socrates, Richard Wagner—suggests the breadth of the discussion. Artists enjoy a special affinity with anatomy and biomedical science. Raphael seems to have depicted a cancer of the breast in one woman’s portrait. Caravaggio studied a decaying corpse that served as the model for his painting, The Raising of Lazarus. Digressions about phrenology, telepathy, and mysticism liven things up. Szczeklik muses on altruism, intuition, the soul, and even the lack of a cure for love sickness. He serves up his best stuff with a dash of sage sensitivity. He writes, “From the moment we are born, we carry the world inside us.” And what an intriguing and inspiring world Szczeklik shows us. --Tony Miksanek
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