1st Edition

Creative Malady Illness in the Lives and Minds of Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Mary Baker Eddy, Sigmund Freud, Marcel Proust, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

By George Pickering Copyright 1974
338 Pages
by Routledge

338 Pages
by Routledge

In this highly provocative book, originally published in 1974, Sir George Pickering, former Professor of Medicine in the University of London and Regius Professor in the University of Oxford, examines the role of illness in the minds and lives of Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Freud, Proust, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mary Baker Eddy. At the age of twenty-six Darwin returned from the... Read more

Author’s Preface.  1. Creative Illness  2. What is Mental Illness?  3. Charles Darwin: The Vigorous Naturalist  4. Charles Darwin: The Invalid Recluse  5. Darwin’s Illness  6. Florence Nightingale: The Young Heroine  7. Florence Nightingale: The Tyrannical Invalid  8. Florence Nightingale: The Extinction of the Flame  9. Miss Nightingale’s Illness  10. A New Theme  11. Mary Baker Eddy  12. Sigmund Freud  13. Marcel Proust  14. Elizabeth Barrett Browning  15. The Nature of Creativity  16. Creativity and Illness  17. The Creative Personality.  Notes.  Index.

Biography

Sir George Pickering (1904–1980) was, at the time of original publication, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, and was a Professor of Medicine for thirty years, seventeen in the University of London, at St Mary’s Hospital, and thirteen as Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 1967 and 1968, had served on the University Grants Committee, the Medical Research Council and the Council for Scientific Policy, was an Honorary Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal College of Physicians, and held numerous honorary degrees from British and foreign universities. He was born in Northumberland. His wife was also a doctor as were three of their four children.