Medicine Is War: The Martial Metaphor in Victorian Literature and Culture

Examines how literature mediated a convergence of militarism and medicine in Victorian culture that continues into the present via a widespread martial metaphor.

Medicine is most often understood through the metaphor of war. We encounter phrases such as "the war against the coronavirus," "the front lines of the Ebola crisis," "a new weapon against antibiotic resistance," or "the immune system fights cancer" without considering their assumptions, implications, and history. But there is nothin...