Post mortem: Essays, historical and medical — Inside the Classic

A Doctor's Approach to Biography

MacLaurin's preface establishes a clear methodology: he aims to study historical leaders 'from the point of view of a doctor,' a perspective he claims has been 'strangely neglected by historians.' He explicitly omits figures like Mahomet and St. Paul, about whom too little is known to dogmatize, focusing instead on those whose actions were 'clearly the result of their state of health.' The author acknowledges that this approach may appear 'unsentimental and harsh' but defends it as 'probably true.' He also apologizes for treating Don Quixote as a real person, arguing that the character was 'quite as much a living individual as anyone in history.' This blend of medical analysis and literary criticism is a distinctive feature of the collection.

Cervantes, Don John, and the Seeds of Don Quixote

In the chapter on Don John of Austria, MacLaurin speculates on the origins of Cervantes' Don Quixote. He suggests that Cervantes, 'biting bitter and sore against a world which had imprisoned him,' likely had in mind the story of Don John, the 'young bastard of Imperial Majesty' who rose to glory at Lepanto. MacLaurin finds it 'hard to believe that Cervantes had not heard of the foolish loyalty of Quixada' or of Don John's romantic dreams. He argues that these incidents contain 'the true seeds of Don Quixote.' The essay also discusses the death of Don Quixote, which MacLaurin calls 'the most generally famous in literature,' and offers a medical interpretation: he guesses that the 'brain fever' mentioned in the novel was actually typhoid, and that Cervantes was describing an old man suffering from shock.

The Pathos of the Idealist Out of His Time

MacLaurin's analysis of Don Quixote's death emphasizes the pathos of 'the idealist who is born out of his time.' He notes that Cervantes began by jeering at the old Don but later 'fell in love with the brave old lunatic,' ultimately portraying him as 'a really noble and beautiful character.' The death scene, MacLaurin argues, is secured by 'means similarly restrained' to another famous death in literature. He describes the duel with the Knight of the White Moon, where Don Quixote is overthrown and forced to vow to cease knight-errantry for a year. The old man is found 'pale and sweating'—a detail MacLaurin believes Cervantes observed from life. Don Quixote dies of syncope, 'a sad and disappointed man, certain of one thing only—that he was out of touch with the majority of mankind.'

MacLaurin's essays offer a distinctive blend of medical reasoning and historical speculation. Readers should note that the author explicitly relies on secondary sources and acknowledges the limitations of his access to original documents. The work is best approached as a series of informed conjectures rather than definitive diagnoses. The chapter on Cervantes and Don Quixote is particularly notable for its literary sensitivity, treating a fictional character as a case study in idealism and physical decline.

That rainy afternoon, I kept returning to the surgeon’s quiet wonder at how Cervantes wrote Don Quixote despite his crippled hand—how a wound becomes a doorway. Later, reaching for something lighter, I stumbled upon A Letter to a Hindu — Edition Insights, and found the same idea: healing isn’t simple, but it is constant.