A health librarian at the theatre: Jane Eyre

As part of our lockdown routine we are enjoying theNational Theatre Live on YouTube.  Each week there is a recording of a National Theatre production. This week it was Treasure Island, and last week Jane Eyre.  Mr Rochester is about to marry Jane Eyre, when it is made known that he is already married and Mrs Rochester is the mysterious unseen character who lives in the attic and who might be responsible for various strange goings on in the house.So why is she hidden away?  What has happened to her?  Is she ill?As one does as a medical librarian, I looked in PubMed and found a paper published in 2015 by two authors from the Mayo Clinic.   They compare what is said in the novel about Bertha Mason, Mrs Rochester, and what George Huntington wrote in his work " On chorea " , the original description of what is now known as Huntington ' s disease.  They find that Bertha Mason has features of the condition that Huntington described.The paper is open access soyou can read it in PubMed Central.
Source: Browsing - Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: Huntington disease medicine in fiction Source Type: blogs