Medicine, Theology and Wellness in Britain from the Enlightenment to - Modernit

Focusing questions of the soul and its relationship to the body in the context of Britain from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, this book exploresthe ways in which medicine and theology co-created modern perceptions of well-being. It intervenes in the presumed conflict between science and religion in long nineteenth-century studies by exposing the way medicine and theology worked together to form ideas of health and wellness. Using religious, theological, and medical history alongside literary scholarship on writers and thinkers from the French Revolution through to the fin de siecle , it illuminates how health and illness are socially constructed. In doing so, it engages with current debates on the nature of health and wellness, critiquing and contextualizing these concepts in scientific, moral, and historical terms.

List of contents

Introduction: Healthy Bodies, Healthy Souls
1: Revolutionary Uprising, Industrialisation, and Nutritional Change
2: Anglican Revivals, Natural Theology, and the Physical Sciences
3: Well-Being, the Social Soul, and the Rise of Public Health
4: Eco-Theology and Ethical Eating
5: Returning to Fragments: Modernism, Decadence, and Disease
Conclusion: Moral and Physical Discomfort
Bibliography
Index

About the author

Dr Lesa Scholl, FRHistS, is an honorary fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her previous publications include: Food Restraint and Fasting in Victorian Religion and Literature; Hunger, Poetry and the Oxford Movement; Medicine, Health and Being Human; and Hunger Movements in Early Victorian Literature.

Product details

• Authors: Lesa Scholl
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 13.11.2025
• EAN: 9781350410909
• ISBN: 978-1-350-41090-9
• No. of pages: 248
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 236 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; RELIGION / Christianity / Literature & the Arts, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Religion & science