Reviewed by: Dickens in the Heart of Medicine: Implications for Today Medical Practice by Ernst E. van der Wall, and: Bleak Health: The Medical History of Charles Dickens and his Family by Nicholas Cambridge William F. Long (bio) Ernst E. van der Wall. Dickens in the Heart of Medicine: Implications for Today Medical Practice. Heartbeat Academic Publications, 2020. Pp. 665. Out of print. ISBN 9789464061468 (hb). Nicholas Cambridge. Bleak Health: The Medical History of Charles Dickens and his Family. Edward Everett Root, 2022. Pp. xxi + 197. £49.95. ISBN 9781913087982 (hb). Dr. Ernst van der Wall is Professor Emeritus of Cardiology at the Leiden University Medical Center, a student of the history of the medical profession, and a long-time member of the Haarlem Branch of the Dickens Fellowship. The target audiences of his book are declared to be Dickens enthusiasts, historians with an interest in medicine, and physicians, including those in training, who "may be charmed and captivated by Dickens and his novels" (18). The value of the book, over and above previous studies in the area, is said to be that it draws particularly on medical historical sources, especially the leading medical journals of Dickens's time. The book is divided into five more-or-less self-contained chapters: "Dickens's Fictional Doctors"; "Dickens's Views on Unorthodox Medicine"; "Dickens's Real-Life Doctors"; "The Final Medical Pathway of Dickens," in which a primary purpose is to consider Dickens's illnesses in relation to the vascular and cardiovascular systems; and an essay on "Dickens's Influence on Today Medical Practices." Each chapter begins with a stated aim and ends with an evaluation of how well the aim has been achieved. The first chapter addresses the standpoint, made in a work published in 2012 in the BMJ, that Dickens's fictional doctors "with one or two exceptions […] range from bumbling fools to negligent crooks" (35). Dr. van der Wall describes some 70-odd medical practitioners from the canon. He finds most, indeed, to be "benign and harmless hilarious humbugs," some twenty to be "good" physicians, and six to be "evil-minded, negligent and egomaniac" doctors (81). This outcome leads him, somewhat surprisingly, to agree with John Cosnett's assessment that "[f ]rom his characterisations it seems that Dickens had respect and admiration for most doctors" (85). The second chapter carries the subtitle: "A Choice between John Elliotson and Thomas Wakley?," these acquaintances of Dickens being considered representative "eccentric unorthodox" and "dogmatic orthodox" physicians respectively (91). The author guides us through the topics of bloodletting, phrenology, mesmerism, spontaneous human combustion (included as "a medical curiosity"), homeopathy, hydropathy and galvanism, commenting on Dickens's interest in and use in his fiction of each, as well as indicating Dickens's general interest in more conventional therapies. Dr. van der Wall summarises his findings thus: "on the one hand Dickens followed [End Page 537] the orthodox Wakley primarily in his endeavours to establish medical, humanitarian and social welfare. On the other hand, Dickens clearly stuck to the beliefs of the nonconformist Elliotson to ingest the magical aura of 'fringe' medicine in his novels" (92). The third chapter, which comprises 369 pages, is over three times the length of the longest of the others. In it, forty-odd individuals are identified, and an inventory of those "meaningful and/or interesting physicians who Dickens encountered" (200) provided. It includes biographical sketches of some thirty-odd individuals, together with the circumstances in which they impacted on Dickens. "Dr. 'Crocus'" and "Joe Specks," encountered by Dickens in America and the "Uncommercial Traveller" in "Dullborough" respectively, are included, on the basis that they are considered to represent "real-life" counterparts. Some inclusions are extensive: those for Oliver Wendell Holmes (Senior) ("The American 'Poet' Physician") and Sir Richard Owen ("The 'Naturalist' Physician") cover 29 and 26 pages respectively. Much of the biographical information in this chapter is readily available elsewhere, although for some readers its collation may be useful. The survey is not exhaustive: the Dickens family doctor Francis Pickthorn, for example, is not mentioned. Those who are listed are arranged chronologically, rather than alphabetically by surname, hindering location of any particular individual of interest. Two lists of those...