Journal of Austrian Studies

Abstract:

This article discusses Die Galeere (1913), the first work by the Austrian writer Ernst Weiß. As a physician and writer whose professional career began in the medical milieu, Weiß poetized natural science and medicine in his work, addressed scientific innovations and diseases, and pointed to the function of knowledge in poetology through the interplay of literature and medicine. Should the author be required to use authentic information according to medical and historical materials? Which diseases dominate and to what extent are they to be seen as a metaphor or a symbol of a time? The paper's intent is to pursue these questions and to attempt a reconstruction of medical knowledge in Weiß' Galeere.