Shakespeare can teach doctors about mind-body link

[Ian Livingston]

It was also a tenet in Paracelsus that there is no disjunct between
mind and body. But then, Paracelsus took his clues from alchemy.

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Albert Rolls <alprolls at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Sorry but the study seems ridiculous as described. The authors, at least according to the article, didn't look at Renaissance texts, medical or otherwise, other than plays and perhaps sonnets etc. The connection between mind and body was commonplace as was the connection between body and world. That the 46 non-Shakespearean texts, picked arbitrarily for all we know, do not deal with the issue the author was interested in exploring tells us nothing about Renaissance ideas regarding the connection between the mind and the body and certainly shouldn't be taken as an indication of Shakespeare's realization of some universal truth that could be useful to doctors today. Simon Forman's diaries also suggest "symptoms . . . have roots" in the mind but of course Forman's name doesn't resonate like that of Shakespeare.
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>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>>Sent: Nov 25, 2011 9:43 PM
>>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Shakespeare can teach doctors about mind-body link
>>
>>http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/25/shakespeare-can-teach-doctors-about-mind-body-link/
>
>



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant