Category Archives: Medicine in Shakespeare

Health Care plays a not insignificant role in Shakespeare’s plays. This ranges from obesity to good food, to digestion, indigestion, exercise or lack of it. Perhaps with good reason, Shakespeare displays a healthy skepticism towards the benefits of medicine as a whole. Of course we must keep in mind the limited scientific knowledge of the time. But common sense in medicine is a commodity that can be easily lost when medicine becomes the “health care industry”. Often medicine becomes a paradoxical denial of death – inducing the collective mind to forget that “All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.” Altogether the practitioner, whether or not in medicine will find some of the best Shakespeare quote on the subject.

The Coronavirus and Galileo

As the following content may be controversial, I do not pretend to truth, even to the truth of him whose thought and findings I report. My basic knowledge rests on the understanding that the property of rain is to wet and of fire to burn, and that a great cause of the night is lack Read More

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War on Health

Trust not the physician. His antidotes are poison and he slays more than you rob. (Timon of Athens, act 4, sc. 3) Medicine and religion share much of their structure of belief. To quote the inimitable George Carlin, “Religion has actually convinced people that there is an invisible man, living in the sky, who watches Read More

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Shakespeare and the Marijuana Refugees to Colorado

“Within the infant rind of this small flower Poison hath residence and medicine power.” (Romeo and Juliet, act 2, sc. 3 Having never partaken of the substance in question, I feel entitled to express an opinion, based on what I read and researched on the subject. Beginning last year, over 100 families have moved to Read More

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Shakespeare and McDonald in Vietnam

“…on the Alps It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, Which some did die to look on …” (Antony and Cleopatra, act 1, sc. 4) The corporate US media reported, with thinly disguised pride, that the McDonald franchise has now entered Vietnam. The implied narrative can be condensed as follow,

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Shakespeare, Nostalgia, a Tiramisu and an Italian Restaurant

“… dainty bits Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.” (Love’s Labours Lost, act 1, sc. 1) Amidst the mist of business, war and folly, compounded in the subjects of recent articles, the following  “news, which is indeed true, may be so like an old tale that the importance of it is in Read More

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Shakespeare, Health Care, Doctors and ADHD

“And thou, too careless patient as thou art, Commit’st thy anointed body to the cure Of those physicians that first wounded thee” (King Richard II, act 2, sc. 1) Call it suspension of disbelief, or rather suspension of belief. But disbelief is called for when, on sundry TV snippets, dedicated to health, we listen to Read More

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Shakespeare, Health Care and the Limits of Medicine

Whom worse than a physician Would this report become? But I consider, By medicine life may be prolong’d, yet death Will seize the doctor too. Cymbeline, act 5, sc. 5 For ordinary citizens it is difficult to understand the issues surrounding the so-called Obamacare plan, legislation or reform, however we may want to call it. Read More

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Shakespeare & Healthful Environments

“This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses.” (Macbeth act 1, sc. 6) Two weeks without an entry… Thanks to the “Your Daily Shakespeare” site followers who emailed me questioning the unusually long hiatus. But….”There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things”, as Read More

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Shakespeare and Good Wine, take 2

“The second property of an excellent sherris is, – the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice: but the sherris warms it, makes it course from the inward to the parts extremes. It illumines the face: which, as a Read More

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Shakespeare and the Medicinal Good Effects of a Good Wine

“A good sherris-sack hath a two fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the crude, dull and foolish vapours which environ it: makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of quick, nimble, fiery and delectable shapes; which deliver’d over to the voice (the tongue) which is the birth, becomes Read More

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