The New Books Network History of Science podcast channel recently released an interview by Dr. Morteza Hajizadeh of Dr. Laura R. Kremmel about her 2022 book Romantic Medicine and the Gothic Imagination; Morbid Anatomies, published by The University of Wales Press and distributed by The University of Chicago Press. Dr. Kremmel approaches her subject from a cross-disciplinary perspective, joining the study of English literature with the history of natural philosophy and the history of medicine, to examine the manner in which the themes of the then popular Gothic literary genre reflected ideas about the human body and medical practices of the period. Of particular interest is her discussion of the Romantic idea of vitalism, likely familiar to all who have read Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, which posits that there is a vital force common to all living organisms that is different from any force found in non-living objects.
Nota bene: Those interested in science communication, particularly communication of important scientific information in regard to public health, may find a later portion of the interview involving another Mary Shelley novel, The Last Man, to be of particular interest.
