Heute vom 9. Augsburger Forum für Medizinprodukterecht

We discuss often the ways in which medicine prolongs life: controlled infections with antibiotics, life saving organ transplants, vaporized tumors and the like. Just as important are the ways in which medicine improves quality of life or gives explanation to the things we fear: the disabilities we can see. A friend of mine who teaches freshman English invited me to attend her school’s production of ‘The Elephant Man” by Bernard Pomerance.  The play, set in the late 1880s, chronicles the journey of the real-life Joseph Merrick, a man so naturally deformed since childhood that he was displayed as a show. His swollen arms, face and legs made those who saw him believe he was half-elephant, half-man. Later abandoned by his show manager, Merrick, goes to live in a London hospital under the care of Dr. Frederick Treves’s, a young surgeon who wants to study the cause of Merrick’s deformities for the interest of science. I knew little of the play before watching but found its content and historical background incredibly relevant to the intersection between medicine and the culture of disability. For many of us, our sicknesses are internal or even silently waiting to reveal themselves. For those however whose disease can be […]