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Forum for Modern Language Studies 2004 40(3):339-350; doi:10.1093/fmls/40.3.339
© 2004 by Court of the University of St Andrews
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What Medicines Won't Cure: Physic and Surgery in the Writings of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter

C. J. Minter

Department of German, University of Exeter, EX4 4QH, United Kingdom

The article highlights the contrast in Jean Paul's writings between physicians as complacent incompetents, and surgeons as skilful, knowledgeable and glamorous figures. I suggest that this contrast reflects an aspect of the broader European medical situation around 1800: the stagnation of physic when practised in isolation from other branches of medicine, and the evolution of surgery into a realm of progress, the sphere of the medical virtuoso. I pay particular attention to the figure of Viktor, the hero of Hesperus (1795), who is outstanding as a representative of a new generation of medical men skilled in the practice of both physic and surgery.

Key Words: German; Eighteenth Century; Jean Paul; Medicine; Literature; Surgery


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