Advancing the human practice of doctoring
The Craft of
Doctoring
We study the craft of doctoring through the poetry and intellectual tradition of physicians, building the language, archives, and inquiry needed for the age of AI.
Rare Medical Books
Digital Archives
Our ongoing project to learn from the past so we can better guide the future directions of medicine. Completely free.
No known English translation elsewhere for these works.
Le Regime du corps
An Old French regimen of health and bodily care, excerpted from Wellcome MS 546, ff. 1r-21r
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De viribus herbarum
A Latin herbal poem on the powers of plants
Open edition → Le Regime du corps
An Old French regimen of health and bodily care, excerpted from Wellcome MS 546, ff. 1r-21r
Open edition → De viribus herbarum
A Latin herbal poem on the powers of plants
Open edition →
In interpretationem Galeni super quatuordecim aphorismos Hippocratis dialogus
A dialogue on Galen's interpretation of fourteen Hippocratic aphorisms
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Poemata
Latin humanist medical and occasional poetry
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Sanitatis tuendae methodus
Latin verse regimens for preserving health
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Icones veterum aliquot, ac recentium medicorum, philosophorumque elegiolis suis editae
Portraits of physicians and philosophers with elegiac poems
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Nicandri Theriaca, interprete Ioannis Gorraeo parisiensi
Greek toxicological poems with Jean de Gorris's Latin translation and commentary
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Coena, sive De cibariorum virtutibus
A Latin medical dinner poem with notes on diet and natural history
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Mikrokosmographia Metrica, sive Humani Corporis Historia
A Latin verse anatomy of the human body
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Three Arabic rajaz medical poems in MS Arabic 129 part 2
Medical verse from Wellcome MS Arabic 129
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La Luciniade du docteur Sacombe
A French didactic poem on childbirth and obstetrics
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Aegidii Corboliensis carmina medica
A Latin critical edition of medieval medical poems
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Le Parnasse médical français
Dictionnaire des médecins-poètes de la France
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Medical Craft in Three Exhibits
A Laboratory for
Medical Humanities
These three pages are studies of the craft of medicine from different humanities angles — the form of a poem, the patterns across a corpus of physician-authored poetry, and the limitations of the official chart.
How arrangement becomes meaning
Visual poetry makes form visible. The exam room, the chart, and the discharge summary are forms too. This studio is a small laboratory for studying how arrangement becomes interpretation, in a poem and in an encounter.
Enter Visual Poetry Studio →What do physicians write about?
Digital humanities methods help us trace recurring images, formal habits, and ethical restraint across physician-authored poems. They show patterns without replacing the slow, attentive work of close reading.
Read across the corpus →How does form shape clinical observation?
The medical record holds facts and accountability. It does not hold moral residue and the fullness of the human condition. Whether parallel charts are a pedagogical tool or a practical technique is a question worth keeping open.
Examples of Parallel Charts →Special Collection
Creative Practice: The Jindal Collection
The Jindal Collection is an applied creative counterpart to our theory-focused work -- an evolving corpus of poems generated in, with, and for the practice of medicine and medical humanities.
Featured poem
I didn't know
“Strength revealed only under pressure. The challenge arrives before the self-knowledge does.”
Read the poem →Language, archives, and inquiry for the future of doctoring
Poet Doctor studies the craft of doctoring through poetry, scholarship, archives, and AI-era inquiry — making physician judgment more visible, more teachable, and more available for serious study.
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