The Art is Long: Primary Texts on Medicine and the Humanities

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The Art Is Long: Primary Texts on Medicine and the Humanities gathers introductory texts in the growing field of medical humanities. This unique volume presents a lens with which to examine the intersection of literature and medicine with diverse selections that span time and the globe. With authors from Sushruta to Hippocrates, Margery Kempe to John Donne, and Susie King Taylor to Sigmund Freud, the volume also highlights the voices of women, people of color, and those who have been overlooked or marginalized by the medical establishment.

The Art Is Long aims to expand the medical humanities canon. In addition to more traditional works, readers will find snippets of literary and narrative encounters with medicine by writers who are neither doctors nor nurses, including professional caretakers and people who might be labeled quacks today but whose contributions represent a part of medical history.

This anthology also includes medical reportage and philosophy, fiction and nonfiction, image and poetry. The shifts in genre, style, and perspective provide a wealth of opportunities to reflect on medical history and literary techniques, focusing on narratives that highlight a personal context for medical subjects in a single volume.