Lord Byron’s Physician

摘要: John William Polidori (1795-1821) was the Edinburgh-trained physician hired by Lord Byron to accompany him Switzerland, where he participated in story-telling event proposed that led, with Polidori's help, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Although those interested English literature might also remember as author of The Vampyre, one first extended works fiction about vampires, his earlier interest somnambulism and trance states is only beginning be appreciated. Even more than students Romantic literature, historians science medicine seem little aware what had written oneirodynia, a synonym for somnambulism, how thoughts from 1815 such activities reflected changing medical zeitgeist at this time. This chapter examines thesis neuroscience context compares wrote writings several other physicians who were fascinated nocturnal wanderings, their causes, manifestations, possible treatments.