Romantic Medicine and John Keats

`This is an exciting book in which the author tries to relate Keats' poetry to his experience as a medical student and practitioner. The result is very interesting, casting new light on Romantic medicine and the sciences associated with it. ...It is hoped that readers of this book will be made aware of the deep metaphorical context of the science of the time - a crucial one in the appearance of modern, specialized and professional science - and also of the way scientific ideas were involved in imaginative literature. It deserves to be widely read.' Meta Science
`It was a brilliant idea to make his poetry the centrepiece around which the author's scholarly exploration of romantic beliefs and attitudes could be organised. This is a book to be studied, savoured, and used for reference; the period covered has been neglected by medical historians. Hermione de Almeida has enriched our knowledge of Keats and of the times in which he lived.' The Lancet
'de Almeida shows how necessary it is to enter into the Romantic spirit with its speculative insights, imaginative leaps and intuition ... She identifies the chief concerns of Romantic medicine as the physician's task, the meaning of life, the definition of health and disease and the evolution of matter and mind. Her study of the expression of these in Keats' poetry is remarkable for its scholarship, close reading of the poems and a wealth of references linking medicine with other ideas and with literature ... de Almeida has made a major contridution to the study of Keats' poetry ... the book makes fascinating reading ... It will be of interest to scholars of Romantic poetry and social historians of the early nineteenth century.' Noel G. Coley, Open University, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 5, No. 3, December 1992