Phrenological Controversy and the Medical Imagination: 'A Modern Pythagorean' in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
Megan J Coyer
Clio medica 2014 DOI: 10.1163/9789401211734_009 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | History, 19th century Phrenology Literature, modern Medicine in literature Scotland Surgeons Hermeneutics |
| Key points | Argues that Robert Macnish's Blackwoodian prose tales served as an experimental template for his medical and phrenological theorizing, particularly on altered states of consciousness and phrenology, and that these tales reveal problematic sites for medical hermeneutics in early nineteenth-century Scotland. |
Abstract
The periodical press in the early nineteenth century was a site of dynamic exchange between men of science and men of letters, and Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine was a particularly rich site of expression for medical ideas. This chapter explores the symbiotic relationship between the Blackwoodian prose fiction and the scientific and medical investigations of the Glaswegian surgeon and writer, Robert Macnish (1802-37), and in particular, his explorations of altered states of consciousness and phrenology. It is argued that his prose tales reveal the Blackwoodian 'tale of terror' to be an experimental template for the medical theorist and budding phrenologist, revealing problematic sites for medical hermeneutics in early nineteenth-century Scotland.