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Raising the Dead: A Doctor's Encounter with His own Mortality
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Richard Selzer. 118 pages. New York: Viking Press; 1994. $17.50.
In the first part of his latest book, Dr. Selzer recounts the sufferings of the 18th century novelist Fanny D'Arblay, who had a mastectomy without clinical anesthesia. Selzer also writes of John Donne and his "spiritual reactions to his physical State" after surviving epidemic fever in 1624. Selzer then tells us what he remembers and what he imagines of his own recent, near-fatal illness: "One minute (he) was well, and sick the next." He describes his life in the intensive care unit: the monitors, the fluids, the nurses, the carnivorous mattress, the evil-looking tulips on the window sill, "the martyrdom of the intensive care unit," and his rich but frightening hallucinations.
Fans of Dr. Selzer will rejoice that he recovered to write about his experiences and to write about them so well.
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