A Man With a Fine Talent For Idleness

Abstract

Thirty years ago as a college sophomore intending to study medicine, I enrolled in a course on the English drama. For the inevitable term paper, I found Medicine in the Modern Drama a fascinating and rewarding subject. I explored the works of such then well-known playwrights as Ibsen, Shaw, Guitry, Romains, Schnitzler, Kingsley, and Howard. Since there was enough material for a book, I could prune and refine my paper rather than struggle to attain adequate length. That essay constituted my first publication. 1 I still regard that first publication with affection. The judgements still seem sound, and there is little that I would change as the result of greater maturity. However, now I can see more clearly that the plays I discussed fall into five distinct categories. Plays for the stage, movies, and television utilize medicine as part of social criticism, or satire, or history, or medical tract, or