Mark Twain and Medicine: Any Mummery Will Cure (original) (raw)

Curing Clemens Bizarre beliefs on health and healing Why did America's 19th century master of satire repeatedly play the boob when he sought medical help? How was the creator of the Connecticut Yankee (who exploited the cupidity of an entire empire) duped by the medical confidence men of his era? K. Patrick Ober, an internist and associate dean at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, takes on this knotty problem in Mark Twain and Medicine: Any Mummery Will Cure. As much a history of medical sectarianism as an extended chart on Samuel Clemens, wife Olivia Livy Langdon, and daughters Susy, Jean, and Clara, the book joins a growing list of medical biographies that illuminate the complex intersections between physicians, medical subjects, and 19th century beliefs about illness and cure.