Shakespeare's Medical Language: A DictionaryPhysicians, readers and scholars have long been fascinated by Shakespeare's medical language and the presence of healers, wise women and surgeons in his work. This dictionary includes entries about ailments, medical concepts, cures and, taking into account recent critical work on the early modern body, bodily functions, parts, and pathologies in Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Medical Language will provide a comprehensive guide for those needing to understand specific references in the plays, in particular, archaic diagnoses or therapies ('choleric', 'tub-fast') and words that have changed their meanings ('phlegmatic', 'urinal'); those who want to learn more about early modern medical concepts ('elements', 'humors'); and those who might have questions about the embodied experience of living in Shakespeare's England. Entries reveal what terms and concepts might mean in the context of Shakespeare's plays, and the significance that a particular disease, body part or function has in individual plays and the Shakespearean corpus at large. |
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Common terms and phrases
Accessed July 31 ague Ann Arbor apoplexy apothecary argues Available through University birth blood body brain breast Caius calls canker cause choler chyle cold complexion cure death diet disease distemper distillation e-book early modern emotions England English Books Online epilepsy excess Falstaff fever fool frenzy fumes Galen gall Georgia Libraries www.libs.uga.edu hair Hamlet healers healing heart heat Henry human humors Iago imagines infection King leprosy liver London and Ann Macbeth madness Martius medicine melancholy Michigan midwife milk mother nourished nurse Othello Paracelsian Paracelsus patient phlegm physician plague play poison purge references Richard Richard II seed sexual sexually transmitted infections Shakespeare sickness skin sleep Sonnet spleen stomach suffered surfeit surgeon syphilis thou ulcers UMI/Early English Books University of Georgia urine vital spirit womb women word wound