My impossible health, or the case of James Joyce, catalogue of an exhibition

JAMES JOYCE, My impossible health, or the case of James Joyce, catalogue of an exhibition, London, Royal College of Physicians, 1977, pp. v, 35, [no price stated]. With so much narrow medical specialization it is refreshing to review this catalogue of an exhibition inter-relating aspects of literature, medicine, and history. It tastefully depicts the tribulations of a frustrated Dublin medical student, James Joyce (18821941), who, in spite of his "impossible health", became one of the foremost creative writers of his times. Joyce stoically endured nine eye operations: he also had rheumatic fever, arthritis, urethritis, and an inclination to alcoholism. Retrospectively the most likely diagnosis seems to be Reiter's syndrome or ankylosing spondylitis. What did Joyce think of his doctors? He got on well with physicians and surgeons, but referred to psycho-analysis as a form of "blackmail", and irreverently regarded Jung as the "Swiss Tweedledum" with Freud as the "Viennese Tweedledee". Denis Cole and other contributors to this fascinating catalogue and exhibition have rendered a service by opening up a new field of great and wide interest.