Incurable and intolerable : chronic disease and slow death in nineteenth-century France / Jason Szabo.

New Brunswick ; London : Rutgers University Press, [2009], ©2009.

x, 295 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-287) and index.

"What are his chances, doctor?" : the semantics of incurability in the nineteenth century -- Reinventing hope in the late nineteenth century -- "I told you so" : the rhyme and reason of chronic disease -- Death, decay, and the genesis of shame -- Medical attitudes toward the care of incurables -- Medical strategies, social conventions, and palliative medicine -- Ecce homo : opiates, suffering, and the art of palliation -- The good, the bad, and the ugly : incurability and the quest for goodness -- The fate of the incurably ill between the two revolutions, 1789-1848 -- Caught between initiative and inertia : responses to the incurably ill from 1845 to 1905.