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| Nathaniel Hawthorne (1813-1878) |
This month's two selections are "Rappaccini's Daughter," by the great though, as most would agree, enigmatic American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and "Vivisection," by French physiologist Claude Bernard. Both pieces concern the use of humans in medical experimentation, although the Hawthorne story is fictional and Bernard's piece is from his book
An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine.
The New York Public Library Companion to Literature calls "Rappaccini's Daughter" one of Hawthorne's "greatest studies of monomania," defined as a single-minded pursuit of an end. A question for Monday: What is Dr. Rappaccini monomanical about?
