Audiobook: Post Mortem: Essays, Historical And Medical

This 1922 collection of extensive essays comprises well written biographies of a few famous folk. The life narratives include analyses of medical and/or psychological elements in each person’s life. Biographies include Anne Boleyn, Jeanne D’Arc, The Empress Theodora, The Emperor Charles V, Don John Of Austria, Cervantes, Don Quixote (not an historical figure but irresistible), Philip II, Mr. and Mrs. Pepys, Edward Gibbon, Jean Paul Marat, Napoleon I, and Benvenuto Cellini. It concludes with an extended meditation on death. “But there were far more whose actions were clearly the result of their state of health; and some of these who happen to have been leaders at critical epochs I have ventured to study from the point of view of a doctor. This point of view appears to have been strangely neglected by historians and others. If the background against which it shows its heroes and heroines should appear unsentimental and harsh, at least it appears to medical opinion as probably true; and it is our duty to seek Truth.” (Preface) – Summary by Book Preface and David Wales