Boswell's Clap and Other Essays: Medical Analyses of Literary Men's Afflictions

This is an excellent book for various groups of readers. It provides wonderful insight into the lives of many literary notables. Dr. Ober looks at the their lives in medical, historical and personal context.The first essays are about the journalist James Boswell, and it's interesting weather you know who he is or not. It's a funny, sometimes sad, and fascinating essay on a Boswell who had repeated attacks of gonorrhea between 1760 and 1790. Boswell admits that he has problem with infidelity (possibly identified by the numerous children he had outside his marriage) but the treatments he endured are positively shocking. It clearly had an effect on his writing, many examples of which are provided. Dr. Ober includes "charts" on the patients illnesses and in spite of it's sometimes clinical weightiness it a charming and compassionate look at other lives in other times.Good for fans of histories, medical histories, or those interested in the very personal aspects of "literary men".