Mere mortals

A series of medico-historical essays presents clinical portraits of prominent historical personalities and episodes, interpreting temperament, behavior, and creativity through medical conditions such as psychasthenia, obsessions, and phobias. The author blends surgical and psychiatric knowledge with literary and historical narrative to consider heredity, illness, and social epidemics as shaping forces, and offers plainspoken explanations of technical terms in a short glossary. Occasional sketches of rulers, writers, and thinkers are read symptomatically rather than hagiographically, and shorter pieces treat epidemics and medical curiosities with a candid, conversational tone.