The doctor-patient relationship and the nineteenth-century french novel
Sarah Jones
This thesis explores how nineteenth-century French novels engage with contemporary medicine through the doctor-patient relationship and medical encounter. By examining authors such as Rousseau, Balzac, Sand, Stendhal, and Zola alongside medical texts of the time, it reveals how literature reflects and questions medical authority.
By contrasting the idealized doctor-patient relationship with the more complex, often tense, medical encounter, the study shows how medicine was not only a science but also a narrative and social practice. Covering topics like hysteria, cholera and the figure of the country doctor, the thesis outlines how medical themes shaped literary form and content throughout the period.
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