The Doctor and the Detective: A Cultural History of Diagnosis

FAIN: FEL-273348-21

Lakshmi Krishnan
Georgetown University (Washington, DC 20057-0001)

Research and writing leading to a book on the intersection of medical diagnoses and detective literature in England, France, and the U.S. from the 19th century to mid-20th century.

The Doctor & the Detective argues that the medical practice of diagnosis cannot be understood without examining its shared intellectual lineage with the literary genre of detective fiction. Sweeping from post-revolutionary Paris to Harlem, the book introduces us to key historical and fictional doctors and detectives in the 150 years leading up to World War II, a central period for both contemporary Western medicine and detective fiction. It draws on medical and literary sources to excavate how the relationship between diagnosis and detective fiction arose, consolidated, and ultimately, diverged. Though this alliance is repeatedly interrogated in detective fiction, it has solidified and remained largely unexamined in medical practice. Ultimately, The Doctor & the Detective repositions diagnosis as an essential strand in the complex history of how doctors—and by extension, humans think—and leads to a richer understanding of the intersection between medicine, society, and culture.