Posted on 11/25/2011 4:07:45 PM PST by TBP
Doctors should read up on Shakespeare, according to an unusual medical study that says the Bard was exceptionally skilled at spotting psychosomatic symptoms.
Kenneth Heaton, a doctor at the University of Bristol in western England, trawled through all 42 of Shakespeare's major works and 46 genre-matched works by contemporaries.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
Brush up your Shakespeare, and they’ll all kowtow.
Shakespeare is simply fantastic; his works contain a higher philosophy and wisdom.
Common folk wisdom persisted down through the centuries because it had value, predictive, medical and otherwise. Ignoring or even denigrating it was and is arrogant and foolhardy, imho.
You’re probably right. Shakespeare was also a great student of human nature as well.
whatever ya wanna know, check w/someone w/o a buncha letters after his name, preferably yer grandma if she is so qualified—the only education is self-education...
Shakespeare is quite realistic about physical symptoms of emotional disturbance. That’s not usually what we think of when we think of a doctor saying “It’s all in your head.” Most people know the literal headaches and stomach churning of worry, for example, and they will usually recognize the link. Some people have masked emotions and for them it is harder to see a link.
Yet even he occasionally picked up on unfair stereotypes (as in the Merchant of Venice — it’s unlikely his Jewish contemporaries were really as crass as Shylock).
Some folks still debate whether Shakespeare was even Shakespeare. With no computer he would have been one very incredibly busy bard with his quill pen. At least once he even stuck a musical score in! (As You Like It, I think. I remember trying to read and arrange the sloppily scrawled thing, on a crazy irregular staff, and then a couple years later I was surprised to independently hear it performed on an educational TV channel.) But it might have been sheer brute force talent.
Shakespeare was also a knowledgeable herbalist. Just check out Ophelia’s mad scene.
Many, many times I have made the observation that the "councilors" of just a few short decades ago were our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, our cousins. And they for worked for us for free ... well, they worked only for love and respect, anyway.
No, you guys don’t get what’s going on here. Hidden agenda. Attribute all symptoms to psychosomatic illness, and you don’t have to pay for expensive diagnostic testing for organic disease. You can’t diagnose psychiatric disease w/o ruling out a physiological or anatomical/structural etiology unless you want to get sued or unless you are granted immunity in a government health care system.
But, by all means, brush up on Shakespeare.
They could start with Shakespeare’s advice as to what to do with all of the lawyers.
Yes, first kill all the lawyers.
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