The posts in What These Works Say comprise reviews and analyses of works from the Humanities selected for their focus on illness experiences beyond what biomedical sources typically provide. The works selected address both the experience of illness diseases and disorders cause (e.g., pain, disability, disorientation), and related challenges (e.g., health care access, psychological manifestations, relationship disruptions). The posts consist of three sections: 1) a brief take on the key perspectives the work offers about disease and illness (According to the Arts); 2) a summary of the whole work (Synopsis); and 3) how the work renders, explains, or expands on the illness experiences or disease processes it covers (Analysis).
According to the art: In this novel published in 1925, Sinclair Lewis offers a view of how human folly complicates application of scientific research findings, medical standards of practice, public health principles, public administration fundamentals, and good governance. He uses medical practice, public health administration, and an infectious epidemic as his case studies. His renderings remain relevant when read ninety-five years after publication.
According to the art: The novel explores the nature of illness and medical research, reasons perpetrators and their apologists can offer to reconcile pedophilia with normal behavior, the wisdom of pursuing medical technologies to extend age well beyond current limits, and whether the failing mind results from a disease process or the normal course of aging.
According to the art: The book is about estrogen from the 1890s until the early 2000s. Covered is the evolution of estrogen use, and how over time it affected feminism, pharmaceutical promotion, patient advocacy, patient information, conceptions of menopause, evidence standards, cultural shifts, and media influences.
According to the art: The movie is a portrait of profound sadness and grief that allows for no way to a happier state. But, it also shows the indomitable human spirit can still be at work under the bleakest of circumstances and darkest of times.
According to the art: This documentary covers the special unit for AIDS patients at San Francisco General Hospital from its inception in 1983 to its closure twenty years later. Social and political issues related to gay rights and AIDS activism are given attention. While the unit was a success, it didn’t always go well and the staff had to overcome internal and external challenges until treatment advances made the unit no longer necessary.
According to the art: A true story of a married couple in the early 20th century seeking gender reassignment surgery offers insights on empathy and on the lengthy arc medical advances and social movements must travel before they are accepted.
According to the art: Through the story of four college friends over many years with one of them drawing most of the novel’s attention, the book provides poignant, breathtaking, and enlightening renderings of profound mental and psychological suffering resulting from abandonment, pedophilia, self-mutilation, rare neurological disease, and the futility health care systems generate for people who need them.
According to the art: Illich argues that health care as a social organization does more to hinder equality and opportunity for individuals than to improve the chances for them. He builds his argument around the concept of iatrogenesis (harm from health care), and discerns three forms of it: clinical, social, and cultural.
According to the art: Through the use of speculative fiction, the author explores how we might react when we can have no doubt about someone else’s pain, injury, or disease.
According to the Art: The book examines several components of American health care to isolate specific causes for the financial toxicity people are experiencing, and offers ideas to help health care consumers, providers, policy experts, and legislators.