We look at two literary descriptions of self-poisoning through the novels, Belladonna and Madame Bovary, and compare them with classic biomedical texts. We focus on how vividly the literary texts depict what people can go through after having poisoned themselves with belladonna or arsenic, how well these descriptions represent or elaborate on biomedical texts and teaching, and the applications they offer to health care practitioners, students, and the general public.  

We are joined by Dr. Kamna Balhara and Dr. Andrew Stolbach, both of whom are associate professors and emergency medicine physicians at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Dr. Balhara also holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in French studies, is a founder and co-director of Health Humanities at Johns Hopkins Emergency Medicine (H3EM), and is a member of the Johns Hopkins Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine. Dr. Stolbach is also a medical toxicologist and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health. Better guests for this episode could not be found. Their expertise on and enthusiasm for the topic and content sources make for an engaging episode.

Links to content sources:

Literary:
Belladonna, by Daša Drndić, translated by Celia Hawkesworth, New York, New Directions, 2017.
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, Translated by Geoffrey Wall. New York, NY: Penguin Classics; 2003.

Biomedical:
Goldfrank’s Toxicologic Emergencies, 11e. McGraw Hill; 2019.
Goodman & Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, 13e, New York, McGraw-Hill, 2018.
Case study: Unseasonal severe poisoning of two adults by deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna). Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health. 2000;120(2):127-130.
The Poisoner’s Handbook, by Deborah Blum. New York, NY: Penguin Books; 2010.
Russell Teagarden’s blog pieces on Belladonna and Madame Bovary at According to the Arts.

The Clinic & The Person is a podcast developed by our editor Russell Teagarden to summon or quicken the attention of health care professionals, their educators, researchers and others to the interests and plights of people with specific health problems aided through knowledge and perspectives the humanities provide.

Feature image by Fulvio Ciccolo