I'm an MD and a writer, so this book was right up my alley. I'm always fascinated by people's lives and stories, and love accounts about the history of medicine, so this book was a very satisfying read in that respect. I wasn't sure I agreed with all of the conclusions drawn by the author, and some of the historical fiction scenes which start some of the chapters are a little awkward, but otherwise the author's voice is very clear, humble, and occasionally very funny. Very good read on the whole. I'd love to read a sequel--perhaps with more female authors? ( )

Author John Ross' book takes a unique view of the lives of 12 American and British literary notables, examining their medical histories to see what impact various maladies had on their personal life and literary output. Along with Orwell and Shakespeare, Ross looks at Hawthorne, Melville, London, Yeats, Swift, Joyce, Milton and the Bronte family, describing the effects TB, VD, blindness, ulcers, dementia and drug abuse had on the various individuals. Part biography, part medical detective sleuthing, Ross' book is a great, illuminating read.

Mike O. / Marathon County Public Library
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I thought this was a terrific read. Dr Ross correlated the clinicopathologic details with the lives of the famous authors, and offered up his interpretation of the most likely diagnoses. He provides logical evidence for his conclusions, in a way reminiscent of the Clinicopathologic Conferences of the New England Journal of Medicine. But these are way more interesting to read.

I liked how he integrated the medical details with the biographical details.

For instance, through logical deduction he shows that Jonathan Swift likely suffered from frontotemporal dementia which is characterized by marked disinhibition. His creative output, especially of scatalogical poems, surged late in life, around the time when his dementia was likely beginning.

The chapter I most enjoyed was on James Joyce, he with those round dark glasses. Joyces’s symptoms began around 1904, when he complained of burning urinary symptoms; his friend thought it sounded like ‘gleet’, or gonorrhea. That was not surprising, given Joyce’s “penchant for wenching in Dublin’s red-light district.” The penile purulent discharge was at the time believed to be gonorrhea, but very likely also represented Chlamydia infection. Infection with both diseases was also possible - that was (and is) a frequent occurrence.

Three years later he developed polyarthritis and iritis (inflammation of the iris of the eye). Joyce continued to be plagued by severe progressive eye damage due to recurrent bouts of inflammation.
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This triad, of inflammation of the urethra, eyes and joints, is typical of Reiter’s syndrome, which is an autoimmune disease triggered by infection, typically Chlamydia. It was named after the German physician Hans Conrad Julius Reiter, who years later was convicted of war crimes, which included medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

Over the years, Joyce was afflicted by recurrent relapses of arthritis and eye inflammations, and suffered much damage to his eyes from the scarring and attempted futile repairs, eventually rendering him almost blind.


When World War 2 broke out, Joyce’s schizophrenic daughter (Lucia, named after the patron saint of vision) was in an asylum in occupied France. Joyce feared for her. The Nazi policy was of forced sterilization or euthanasia of the mentally ill. And who was in charge of that program? Yes, Dr Hans Reiter, of Reiter’s syndrome, the disease suffered by James Joyce.

If he had only used a condom… ( )

A fascinating, engrossing take on literary biography. Ross is as wonderfully adept at writing about literature and history as he is about medicine. ( )

Brilliant and fascinating! An exhaustively researched and compelling look at the bodies (literally) behind some of the greatest works of literature. ( )