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.