title: "True clinical fictions": medical and literary narratives from the Civil War Hospital.
abstract: Where to find stories of the "real" Civil War? Since Walt Whitman, observers have suggested the place to look is the military hospital. This paper offers a comparative analysis of medical case histories and literary stories written by S. Weir Mitchell, head contract-surgeon at one of the largest Union army research hospitals. I illustrate that Mitchell's case histories and stories were at once complementary and antagonistic in their use of medical knowledge and narrative technique as a means of achieving truth-value.
mesh_terms: D049672:History, 19th Century; D006772:Hospitals, Military; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D008887:Military Medicine; D014481:United States; D014857:Warfare