“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906
Narrative-based physician records contain much more than observerless data and diagnoses. Indeed, a “case,” the basic currency of medical communication, can be seen as a literary genre, much like a novel or a poem, and given close readings for author voice, tradition, and influences. In this article...
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
2021
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 |
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crunivtoronpr:10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 2023-12-31T10:18:22+01:00 “If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 Kidd, Monica 2021 http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 en eng University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) Canadian Bulletin of Medical History volume 38, issue 2, page 423-434 ISSN 0823-2105 2371-0179 General Medicine journal-article 2021 crunivtoronpr https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 2023-12-01T08:18:24Z Narrative-based physician records contain much more than observerless data and diagnoses. Indeed, a “case,” the basic currency of medical communication, can be seen as a literary genre, much like a novel or a poem, and given close readings for author voice, tradition, and influences. In this article, I describe my initial encounter with Dr. Wilfred Grenfell’s casebooks in a hospital basement in St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador, and my subsequent engagement with them as both a physician and a poet. Adopting Bleakley and Marshall’s definition of medical lyricism as the impulse that “draws our attention to delicacy, tenderness and the joyous, and to verve, desire, eroticism, the fecund, abundance and generation,” I argue that Grenfell’s approach to medicine in early 20 th -century Newfoundland and Labrador was both a product of his scientific training and his enculturation at the end of the Victorian period. Article in Journal/Newspaper Newfoundland University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) Canadian Bulletin of Medical History e520032021 |
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University of Toronto Press (U Toronto Press - via Crossref) |
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crunivtoronpr |
language |
English |
topic |
General Medicine |
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General Medicine Kidd, Monica “If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
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General Medicine |
description |
Narrative-based physician records contain much more than observerless data and diagnoses. Indeed, a “case,” the basic currency of medical communication, can be seen as a literary genre, much like a novel or a poem, and given close readings for author voice, tradition, and influences. In this article, I describe my initial encounter with Dr. Wilfred Grenfell’s casebooks in a hospital basement in St. Anthony, Newfoundland and Labrador, and my subsequent engagement with them as both a physician and a poet. Adopting Bleakley and Marshall’s definition of medical lyricism as the impulse that “draws our attention to delicacy, tenderness and the joyous, and to verve, desire, eroticism, the fecund, abundance and generation,” I argue that Grenfell’s approach to medicine in early 20 th -century Newfoundland and Labrador was both a product of his scientific training and his enculturation at the end of the Victorian period. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kidd, Monica |
author_facet |
Kidd, Monica |
author_sort |
Kidd, Monica |
title |
“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
title_short |
“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
title_full |
“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
title_fullStr |
“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
title_full_unstemmed |
“If We Can Make a Cure of Him”: Lyrical Grenfell in the St. Anthony Casebooks, 1906 |
title_sort |
“if we can make a cure of him”: lyrical grenfell in the st. anthony casebooks, 1906 |
publisher |
University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 |
genre |
Newfoundland |
genre_facet |
Newfoundland |
op_source |
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History volume 38, issue 2, page 423-434 ISSN 0823-2105 2371-0179 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.520-032021 |
container_title |
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History |
container_start_page |
e520032021 |
_version_ |
1786820442168754176 |