The Surgeon Evgueni Vasilievich Pavlov in the Operating Theater, by Ilya Repin, 1888. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Medicine

Volume II, Number 4 | fall 2009

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The Travelling Quack, by Tom Merry, 1889.

Preamble

The God in the Machine

By Lewis H. Lapham

Americans ask of medicine more than medicine can deliver—not only the cure for death, but also the gift of riches.

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The Garden of Death, by Hugo Simberg, 1896.

In the Midst of Death

By John Crowley

If the universe can’t outlive or transcend individual consciousness, does death even really exist?

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Map

Contagion

A brief history of malaria, leprosy, and smallpox.

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1862 | Washington, DC

Louisa May Alcott Clears for Action

On tending to the war-wounded.More

c. 1863 | Missouri

Home Remedies

The herb doctor cooks up a cure.More

1804 | London

Helping Himself

Thomas De Quincey enters the church of opium.More

Charts & Graphs

Field Research

Advances in modern medicine during wartime.

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Black and white photograph of American writer and critic Anatole Broyard.

Image of Chinese poet Bai Juyi.

Portrait of Fyodor Dostoevsky

Oil painting portrair Michel de Montaigne in red robes and white collar

English writer Jerome K. Jerome.

Let me recommend the best medicine in the world: a long journey, at a mild season, through a pleasant country, in easy stages.

—James Madison, 1794

Black and white photograph of Emily Dickinson sitting next to a desk.

American writer William Styron.

Emily Dickinson & William Styron

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Lapham’sDaily

Roundtable

Lapham’s Quarterly Is on Hiatus

By Lapham’s Quarterly

But the American Agora Foundation is already planning for the future. More

The Colosseum, attributed to Robert Eaton, c. 1855.

DÉjÀ Vu

Monumental Mistakes

2023:

Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.

c. 1850:

Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.

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Terracotta funerary plaque, Greek, Attic, c. 520 BC.

The World in Time

Robert D. Kaplan

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power. More

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