Biblioteca literaria para médicos (I)

Abstract

The adequate practice of medicine is a difficult job if some intimate and deep feelings of patients, such pain, loneliness, depression and helplessness facing an incurable disease or the fear of dying, are not fully understood. A good way to gain a satisfactory understanding of such feelings might be the reading of the great literary works of all times. In this “Medical library for physicians” an essential list of seventy literary works from the Modern to the Contemporary periods has been collected. Their plot is about the disease, the madness, the hospital, the professionalism and the historical and social images of the physicians. In the first part of the article, a brief review of the first thirty five books is carried out. It considers from Auto dos físicos (1512) by Gil Vicente to Pabellón de reposo (1943) by Camilo José Cela.