Medical Examinations: Dissecting the Doctor in French Narrative Prose, 1857-1894

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments
Those readers who have spent excruciatingly long hours in physicians’ waiting rooms will appreciate that Medical Examinations has been in my cerebral waiting room for well over ten years. Indeed, it was not only the subject but also the seemingly endless nature of the project that inspired my title, and although I shall avoid a facile pun on the word patient, let me just say that my pathological obsession with this study is one illness I am glad at long last to call “terminal.” During the ten-plus years that this particular obsession had me in its grasp, I incurred debts to many people. Let me mention first, not last, my husband, Lance Donaldson-Evans, whose sense of humor has lightened many a discouraging day. Without his moral support, his generosity, and his good-natured willingness to listen, discuss, read, reread, and read yet again, this study would never have seen a printing press. To him I dedicate this book. My now-grown children, Catherine and Andrew, read parts of my manuscript and offered pertinent suggestions for stylistic revisions. Mostly, though, they have contributed to this project by the laughter and the joy they bring into my life. Along with Lance, they are my “reality check” when work threatens to overwhelm me and causes me to forget my priorities. Frank Paul Bowman was the first person outside of my immediate family to whom I dared show the manuscript. Reading it with characteristic thoroughness, alacrity, and kindness, he saved me from some embarrassing omissions and errors. If errors remain, I take full xii acknowledgments responsibility. Gerald Prince followed. For his suggestions and his guidance in helping me place the manuscript, I am deeply grateful. Ross Chambers, who first became aware of my project several years ago and offered support and encouragement then, played an important role when he read the manuscript for the University of Nebraska Press. His comments were gracious and helpful. Allan Pasco, Nebraska’s other reader, was equally encouraging. He too is part of the history of this project, as he has often pointed out relevant articles to me. Murray Sachs also helped shape my study: the chapter on Alphonse Daudet’s Le Nabab owes its existence to him. Barbara Cooper’s useful advice for revisions to the Goncourt chapter was very much appreciated; even more appreciated are her unwavering friendship and support. Karen Orman also demonstrated her friendship by her insightful reading of various parts of the manuscript. At the University of Delaware and elsewhere, colleagues too numerous to mention by name suggested books and articles they thought would be useful to me. Let me assure them here of my gratitude. I would also like to thank my chairman, Richard Zipser, for his invaluable assistance in arranging my teaching and administrative schedule to allow me the time needed for a booklength project. As Director of Graduate Studies for my department over the past six years, I have benefited from the help of several graduate assistants. My gratitude for helping me with the more tedious aspects of preparing a manuscript for publication goes to Bree Dallmeyer, Victoria Douglas, Heather Garton, Stephanie Hopwood, Christina Joligard, Susan Klute, and Laura Quinn. My work was supported by a General University Research Grant from the University of Delaware in the summer of 1990 and by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1993–94. For this help, without which my project would probably still be scattered across an array of diskettes under unrecognizable file names, I am deeply grateful. I am grateful too to Jack Tracy, who did a superb job of photographing the illustrations, and to Daniel Simon for copyediting the manuscript with care and discretion. Finally, I would like to thank the friendly and patient staff at the University of Nebraska Press. acknowledgments xiii A few of the chapters are revised versions of previously published articles, and I would like to thank the publishers for permission to reprint them. Chapter 1 originally appeared in Symposium 44.1 (spring 1990): 15–27, published by Heldref Publications, 1319 18th Street N.W., Washington dc 20036-1802, and reprinted with the permission of the Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation, copyright 1990; chapter 3 in Literary Generations, edited by Alain Toumayan (Lexington ky: French Forum, 1992), 150–62; chapter 4 in the Stanford French Review 13:2–3 (fall– winter 1989): 193–210. Chapter 5 was presented...