While medical language is soaked in metaphor, medicine – that is, medical culture, clinical practice, and medical education – outwardly rejects metaphor for objective, literal scientific language. Arguing that this is a misstep, this book critically considers what embracing the use of metaphors, similes and aphorisms might mean for shaping medical culture, and especially the doctor-patient relationship, in a healthy way. It demonstrates how the landscape of medicine may be reshaped through metaphor shift and is an important work for all those interested in the use of language in medicine.

This book claims that metaphors must be seen as indispensable cognitive and communicative instruments in medical science. Analysis of texts taken from recently published medical handbooks reveals what kind of metaphors are used to structure certain medical concepts and what the functions are of the metaphorical expressions in the texts. Special attention is drawn to the idea that scientific facts do not originate from passive observation of reality. Imaginative thinking and the use of metaphors are required to make the unknown accessible to us. Yet, although metaphors are often a sine qua non for the genesis of a scientific fact, they may also inhibit the development of alternative views. This is due to the fact that metaphors always highlight certain aspects of a phenomenon while other aspects remain obscured. Analysis of the metaphors used in medical texts may reveal exactly which aspects are highlighted and which remain hidden and may thus help to find alternative metaphors (and possibly therapies) when current metaphors are no longer adequate. This book should be of interest not only to linguists, translators and researchers working in the field of intercultural communication, but also to doctors and medical scientists, and those interested in the philosophy of science.

Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as "the war against the coronavirus," "the front lines of the Ebola crisis," "a new weapon against antibiotic resistance," or "the immune system fights cancer" without considering their assumptions, implications, and history. But there is nothing natural about this language. It does not have to be, nor has it always been, the way to understand the relationship between humans and disease. Medicine Is War shows how this "martial metaphor" was popularized throughout the nineteenth century. Drawing on the works of Mary Shelley, Charles Kingsley, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Joseph Conrad, Lorenzo Servitje examines how literary form reflected, reinforced, and critiqued the convergence of militarism and medicine in Victorian culture. He considers how, in migrating from military medicine to the civilian sphere, this metaphor responded to the developments and dangers of modernity: urbanization, industrialization, government intervention, imperial contact, crime, changing gender relations, and the relationship between the one and the many. While cultural and literary scholars have attributed the metaphor to late nineteenth-century germ theory or immunology, this book offers a new, more expansive history stretching from the metaphor's roots in early nineteenth-century militarism to its consolidation during the rise of early twentieth-century pharmacology. In so doing, Servitje establishes literature's pivotal role in shaping what war has made thinkable and actionable under medicine's increasing jurisdiction in our lives. Medicine Is War reveals how, in our own moment, the metaphor remains conducive to harming as much as healing, to control as much as empowerment.

"In this penetrating analysis of the social attitudes toward various major illnesses - chiefly tuberculosis, the scourge of the 19th century, and cancer, the terror of our own - Susan Sontag demonstrates that "illness is not a metaphor" and shows why "the healthiest way of being ill is one purified of metaphoric thinking." Once tuberculosis was identified as a bacterial infection, it ceased to be a symbol of a romantic fading away or of a sensitive or artistic temperament, and it could be treated and cured. Similarly, we must today cease to think of cancer as a mark of doom, a punishment or a sign of a repressed personality, and recognize it for what it is: one disease among many and often receptive to treatment." -- from back cover.

The daily challenges of living—and coping—with a chronic and progressive invisible illness. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women worldwide. Yet most people are still unaware that heart disease is not just a man's problem. Carolyn Thomas, a heart attack survivor herself, is on a mission to educate women about their heart health. Based on her popular Heart Sisters blog, which has attracted more than 10 million views from readers in 190 countries, A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease combines personal experience and medical knowledge to help women learn how to understand and manage a catastrophic diagnosis. In A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease, Thomas explains • how to recognize the early signs of a heart attack • why women often delay seeking treatment—and how to overcome that impulse • the link between pregnancy complications and future heart disease • why so many women with heart disease are misdiagnosed—and how to help yourself get an accurate diagnosis • the importance of cardiac rehabilitation in lowering mortality risk • what to expect during your recovery from a heart attack • how the surreal process of coping with heart disease may affect your daily life • methods for treating heart disease–related depression without drugs Equal parts memoir about a misdiagnosed heart attack, guide to the predictable stages of heart disease—from grief to resilience—and patient-friendly translation of important science-based findings on women's unique heart issues, this book is an essential read. Whether you're a freshly diagnosed patient, a woman who's been living with heart disease for years, or a practitioner who cares about women's health, A Woman's Guide to Living with Heart Disease will help you feel less alone and advocate for better health care.

"This book investigates how graphic medicine enables sufferers of mental illness to visualize the intricacies of their internal mindscape through visual metaphors and reclaim their voice amidst stereotyped and prejudiced assumptions of mental illness as a disease of deviance and violence"--

From a doctor Oliver Sacks has called a “born storyteller,” a riveting account of practicing medicine at a fast-paced urban hospital For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world’s cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care. Living and dying in the foreign country we call home, they have much to teach us about the American way, in sickness and in health.