The patient's view: John Donne and Katharine Anne Porter.

摘要

In the autumn of 1623 John Donne found himself smitten by a sudden and debilitating illness. To this day no one can be sure what ailed the English poet and dean of St Paul's-medical historians have suggested everything from "relapsing" fever, to "spotted" fever and typhus-but no matter, for in the notes Donne kept of his suffering he left us something more valuable than mere medical diagnosis. "Variable and therefore miserable condition of man", Donne begins his account of his 7 days of fevers and sweats. "This minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz'd with a sodaine change, & alteration to worse, and can impute it to no other cause, nor call it by any name.