Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough by John J. Ross

To be fair, Ross is more measured and less sensational in his storytelling than Haines still, he’s fond of a hyperbolic turn of phrase, a scatological flourish or a juicy tidbit of sexual history. Ross’s energetic style and narrative structure are reminiscent of Max Haines, the syndicated newspaper columnist of “Crime Flashback.” Occasionally he drops into a plain English, doctor–teacher mode for the benefit of nonphysician readers. The chapters about Shakespeare and Orwell were first published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. He begins with Shakespeare’s tremor and ends with Orwell’s bronchiectasis, and along the way, makes a case for Jonathan Swift’s dementia and describes “the many maladies of Herman Melville.” All the writers lived and died before the mid-twentieth century - effectively the beginning of the modern medical era.

Ross serves up much delicious speculation, diagnostic puzzles, and a plethora of grotesque details about assorted physical and mental ailments that afflicted ten literary giants.

There’s definitely evidence cited, more than a few facts and some historical fiction. The book is medical literature - but a mixed genre. Holy crap, I thought, there is a lot of stuff here on syphilis.” I dusted off my battered copy of the Riverside Shakespeare and started leafing through it.

He noted, “I had a recollection from my undergraduate days that the Bard was fond of joking about the great pox. Ross wanted to enliven his presentation on genital infections with a few lines from Shakespeare. It began as a PowerPoint talk about syphilis for medical grand rounds. For would-be writers, the provenance of Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough: The Medical Lives of Famous Writers is noteworthy.

Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough by John J. Ross