The Madness of America

Abstract

Abstract The essays in this volume of American Literary History devoted to the echoes of medical discourse in American literary culture represent the best of our contemporary approaches to the Medical Humanities. In my essay-comment, I pose the question about how “American” such queries are in the cases presented. My answer is that they are very American, often in surprising ways.American patients’ central nervous systems are exhausted; their energy reserves depleted by the world which they inhabit.