Medical Paratexts From Medieval To Modern: Dissecting The Page (palgrave Studies In Literature, Science And Medicine)

This collection establishes the term ‘medical paratexts’ as a useful addition to medical humanities, book history, and literary studies research. As a relatively new field of study, little critical attention has been paid to medical paratexts. We understand paratext as the apparatus of graphic communication: title pages, prefaces, illustrations, marginalia, and publishing details which act as mediators between text and reader. Discussing the development of medical paratexts across scribal, print and digital media, the collection spans the medieval period to the twenty-first century. __Dissecting the Page__ is structured in two thematic sections, underpinned by a shared examination of ideas of medical and lay readership and a history of reader response. The first section focuses on the production, reception, and use of medical texts. The second section analyses the role and significance of authority, access, and dissemination in discussions of health, medicine, and illness, for both lay and medical readerships. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Authority, Authenticity and Reputation: An Introduction to Medical Paratexts (Hannah C. Tweed, Diane G. Scott)....Pages 1-12 Front Matter ....Pages 13-13 ‘[P]rophane fidlers’: Medical Paratexts and Indecent Readers in Early Modern England (Harry Newman)....Pages 15-41 Touching Twins in the Texts and Medical Paratexts of Seventeenth-Century Midwifery Books (Louise Powell)....Pages 43-56 Graphic Surgical Practice in the Handbills of Seventeenth-Century London Irregulars (Roberta Mullini)....Pages 57-73 Profit and Paratexts: The Economics of Pharmaceutical Packaging in the Long Nineteenth Century (Laura Mainwaring)....Pages 75-90 Front Matter ....Pages 91-91 Remedies for Despair: Considering Mental Health in Late Medieval England (Natalie Calder)....Pages 93-109 The Medical Paratext as a Voice in the Patient’s Chamber: Speech and Print in Physick for the Poor (1657) (Elspeth Jajdelska)....Pages 111-122 Archives, Paratexts and Life Writing in the First World War (Hannah C. Tweed)....Pages 123-137 “Nonsense Rides Piggyback on Sensible Things”: The Past, Present, and Future of Graphology (Deborah Ellen Thorpe)....Pages 139-155 Medical Marginalia in the Early Printed Books of University of Glasgow Library (Robert MacLean)....Pages 157-173 Back Matter ....Pages 175-178 "Nonsense rides piggyback on sensible things", declares professional sceptic and questioned-document analyst Joe Nickell concerning graphology. This chapter examines graphology's enduring allure and reach, despite its controversies, and considers its relationship with other types of handwriting analysis. It first asks: is it possible to metaphorically "dissect" the page of handwritten texts, to scrutinize writing as a "medical paratext" rich in information about the writer's state of health? It then interrogates the nature of the connection between physical and mental states and handwriting. It demonstrates how academics are going "back to basics" with their enquiries into individual difference and handwriting features, and how digital methodologies are contributing to this. Thus, this chapter is an updated study of graphology, providing a wider understanding of the concept of the paratext by considering the information captured in handwriting in the context of a digital age