Just Looking: How the Revolution in Medical Education Influenced the Lives and Works of Arthur Conan Doyle and William Carlos Williams

An academic investigation of how the revolution in medical education during the late 1800s influenced the lives and works of Arthur Conan Doyle and William Carlos Williams. One was from Edinburgh, Scotland; the other was from Rutherford, New Jersey. One is best known as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, one of the most enduring characters in all of literature; the other is best known as the poet who wrote about a red wheelbarrow and a great, clanging fire engine howling through a city. One was a hale and hearty man who excelled on the playing field; the other suffered from a heart murmur. Two men whose lives, backgrounds, and work were very different, and yet both shared a singular education experience that shaped their respective works. During the late 1800s, just as Arthur Conan Doyle began to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, a new professor of physiology was introducing a new curriculum based on objective observation and scientific rigor; by the time William Carlos Williams began studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the revolutionary methodology had crossed the Atlantic and taken hold in the states. This academic investigation explores the ways that close study of science, diagnosis, and observation influenced the primary works of two of the most renowned figures in literary history, and demonstrates an underpinning connection between craft and practice. "Just Looking" was the culmination of research conducted by Will Entrekin with the support of Saint Peter's College.