Lord Campbell's account of Shakespeare's legal knowledge stimulated Sir John (Charles) Bucknill to interpret the bard's words and phrases of medical significance for the general reader. Editorial.

摘要

Lord Campbell's account of Shakespeare's legal knowledge stimulated Sir John (Charles) Bucknill (1817-97)-a founding editor of Brain (1878) and co-author with Hack Tuke of the Manual of Psychological Medicine (1858)-to interpret the bard's words and phrases of medical significance for the general reader. In The Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare (1860), Bucknill concludes that so extensive are Shakespeare's medical allusions as to make it certain that he had made a special study of the healing art. Because fewer advances had been made in understanding diseases of the mind than physical disorders, Shakespeare has much to say that is still of relevance to mid-19th century opinion. Bucknill suggests that, amongst other physicians of his time, Shakespeare portrays John Caius, Sir Theodore Mayerne, William Harvey, William Butte and John Hall (the husband of his daughter Susanna) in his plays. In Shakespeare and Medicine (1959), Mr Robert Simpson FRCS also aimed 'to record the medical references in the plays and poems, to assess Shakespeare's knowledge of the medicine of his day, to consider the uses to which he put it, and to discuss some of the possible sources of his medical knowledge'. So what are the references?