Description
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking medical and social history of a devastating hereditary neurological disorder once demonized as “the witchcraft disease”
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2009 American Medical Writers Association Medical Book Award in the Healthcare Professionals (non-physician) category, given by the American Medical Writers Association.
“Wexler provides an accessible account of a disease in history. A richness of context gives her study its strength and character.”—Charles E. Rosenberg, Harvard University
“This is a remarkable story of ‘St. Vitus' Dance’ (Huntington's Chorea) from many perspectives: personal, historical and social. Its meticulous history, drawn from archives and personal experience details how this late-onset hereditary disease was viewed not only medically but personally and socially by family members, neighbors and friends of afflicted individuals. This is a must read for anyone interested in the social history and policy surrounding hereditary disease.”—Garland Allen, Washington University in St. Louis
“This book is an engaging chronicle of how the lived experience of illness in a family and community transforms over centuries into an intensely monitored and medicalized hereditary disease. Wexler does what historians do best: she folds what we take now to be a straightforward phenomenon, Huntington’s disease, back into the story of its making. By doing so, she tells us something profound about how we imagine ourselves and how we are connected to one another.”—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, author of Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Literature and Culture
“A brave and pioneering work.”—Daniel Kevles, author of In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity
“Alice Wexler has once again accomplished the near impossible by writing a fascinating academic page-turner. Filled with truth and brilliance throughout, The Woman Who Walked into the Sea is an amazing book that leaves the reader not only better informed, but materially enriched, moved by the experience, and not wanting it to end.”—Carole Browner, University of California, Los Angeles
