Abstract
This project is an investigative review of the overlap between medicine and literary works throughout history. The guiding questions are how medicine and its components have influenced literature, and, relatedly, how literature reflects the history of medicine. This will be explored from three analytic lenses: 1) how novels, poetry, and dramatic works reflect the medical advancements and health concerns of the time period they were written in, 2) how imagery of disease and anatomy is often a key rhetorical device in novels, poetry, and drama, and 3) how literature provides us with a rich historical record of the public image of the physician.