Blood and Sympathy in the 19th Century (with Professor Ann Kibbie)

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"England may with justice claim to be the native land of transfusion," wrote one European physician in 1877, acknowledging Great Britain’s role in developing and promoting human-to-human transfusion as treatment for life-threatening blood loss. But what did this scientific practice mean for literature? How did it excite the imagination of authors and readers? And how does our understanding of transfusion help us to understand our own reading of historical and contemporary scientific advancements? In today's episode, Jacke talks to Professor Ann Kibbie of Bowdoin College about her new book, Transfusion: Blood and Sympathy in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, which examines the scientific and literary treatment of the nineteenth-century practice of transfusion, including the way transfusion seeped into the works of authors like George Eliot, Adam Smith, and Bram Stoker, whose Dracula stands as a culmination of the practice of transfusion and the elemental feelings it arouses. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. Music Credits: “Midnight Tale” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Hello, Transfusion.
0:13.0	The word began as a description of pouring liquid from one vessel to another.
0:18.0	And was used in the 1570s to describe wine being decanted and intermingled. By the 1640s the term was applied to blood
0:27.8	taken from one body and put into another. By the Victorian age, as medical science advanced, the practice of
0:34.8	transfusion had become part of the cultural lexicon and literary imagination.
0:40.0	England may with justice, claimed to be the native land of transfusion, wrote one European
0:46.8	physician in 1877 acknowledging Great Britain's role in developing and promoting human to human transfusion as a treatment for life-threatening blood loss.
0:58.0	But what did this scientific practice mean for literature?
1:02.0	How did it excite the imagination of authors and what did any of it
1:06.1	mean for readers? And how does our understanding of transfusion help us to understand our own
1:11.9	reading of historical and contemporary scientific
1:15.3	advancements.
1:17.3	Today's guest, Professor Ann Kibby of Bowden College is an expert on transfusion. Her new book, Transfusion, blood and sympathy in the 19th century literary imagination
1:28.0	examines the medical discourse that surrounded the real 19th century practice of transfusion, which focused on women suffering
1:35.6	from uterine hemorrhage, alongside literary works that exploited the operations sentimental,
1:42.2	satirical, sensational, and gothic potential.
1:46.7	We'll talk about all of this with Professor Kibby, including the way Transfusions seeped
1:51.0	into the works of authors like George Elliot, Adam Smith, and of course,
1:55.8	Bram Stoker, whose work Dracula stands as a kind of culmination of the practice of
2:01.5	transfusion and the elemental feelings it arouses in us all.
2:07.5	That's coming up today on the history of literature. The publishing industry is a system.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jacke Wilson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Jacke Wilson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.