"Medicated" Nature, Poisoned Nature: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. and Nineteenth-Century American Medicine
In the preface to the second edition of Elsie Venner: A Romance of Destiny, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. refers to his work as a “medicated” novel. He also claims to have written his “medicated” work to provide a meditation on the doctrine of “original sin,” wondering whether the eponymous character is morally responsible for her amoral nature. With a background in the medical field, however, Holmes approaches the concept of morality and amorality from a purely physical point of view, forcing his readers to confront both the fact of the impressionable nature of the human body as well as the potential long-term effects on human psychology of disability induced by bodily trauma.