Authors Who Knew Medicine Quiz | Author's Life

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1. What Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, author of "The Red Wheelbarrow", was also a pediatrician?

Answer: William Carlos Williams

Williams (1883-1963) practiced medicine for over 40 years, while writing not only poetry but also novels, essays, and plays. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to him posthumously for his volume entitled "Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems".

2. What Russian playwright and fiction writer, author of "The Sea Gull", graduated from Moscow University's medical department in 1884?

Answer: Anton Chekhov

Chekhov (1860-1904) is considered one of the greats of Russian literature. His medical background contributed to his work on social issues, including the creation of programs for famine relief and the humane treatment of prisoners. Among his other plays are "The Cherry Orchard", "Uncle Vanya", and "Three Sisters".

3. What popular 20th Century American writer and graduate of Harvard Medical School published his last novel, "Next", in 2006?

Answer: Michael Crichton

Crichton, author of "The Andromeda Strain", "Jurassic Park", "The Great Train Robbery", "State of Fear", and many more, also created and produced TV's "ER". It is less well known that he wrote technical papers on such subjects as Egyptian crania, pituitary chromosome adenoma, and medical obfuscation -- a crucial topic in modern life! In 2002, a previously undiscovered dinosaur was named in his honor: the Crichtonsaurus bohlini. Michael Crichton died on November 4, 2008.

4. What veterinarian, known to his friends as Alf Wight, began his writing career at the age of 50?

Answer: James Herriot

James Herriot (1916-1995) was the pen name of James Alfred Wight. He was raised in Scotland where he became a veterinary surgeon at the age of 23. He practiced veterinary medicine in the Yorkshire countryside all his life. In 1966, when Wight was 50, his wife persuaded him to write the funny and heartwarming stories of the animals he had treated and their owners.

The result was the hugely successful "All Creatures Great and Small".

5. What New Testament evangelist, according to tradition, was also a physician and an artist?

Answer: St. Luke

Biblical scholars tell us that the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles was a Gentile from Antioch. In Paul's Letter to the Colossians (4:14), Luke is called "the most dear physician" -- a designation borne out by the evident interest in medical matters in the Lucan writings. Tradition dating back to at least 980 A.D. also claims he was a painter, and attributes to him a picture of the Virgin, now at St. Maria Maggiore in Rome.

6. What author of detective fiction was also an ophthalmologist?

Answer: Arthur Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle (1859-1930) said that the character of Sherlock Holmes was inspired by one of his instructors at the Edinburgh Infirmary -- a doctor whose unexpected diagnoses based on intuition and keen observation amazed all onlookers. Many of the Holmes stories also had their origins in Conan Doyle's experiences as a doctor. And don't forget that Dr. Watson was a medical man!

7. Who was dean of Harvard Medical School, as well as a popular poet and founder of the "Atlantic Monthly"?

Answer: Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) is credited with revolutionizing sanitary conditions in the practice of obstetrics, saving the lives of countless women. In addition, he was a well-known public speaker, the author of a witty book of essays entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table", and many popular poems, including "The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay".

His son, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., was an extremely influential Supreme Court Justice.

8. What renowned iconoclastic poet served as a nurse in wartime?

Answer: Walt Whitman

Whitman (1819-1892) was a volunteer nursing aide in Washington D.C. during the Civil War, tending the wounds of both Union and Confederate soldiers. His best known works include "Song of Myself" and "I Sing the Body Electric" from "Leaves of Grass."

9. What medically-trained writer's instantly successful book sold more than 50 million copies?

Answer: Benjamin Spock

Pediatrician Dr. Spock (1903-1998), with his "Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care", became history's most celebrated and most consulted expert on all aspects of parenting. The book, published in 1946, was second in sales only to the Bible. Dr. Spock was in the spotlight again in the 1960s when he marched in protests against the Vietnam War, and in 1972 when he ran for President of the United States on a third-party ticket.

10. What English poet was first a surgeon's apprentice and then a medical student at what is now King's College London before writing such works as "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale"?

Answer: John Keats

Keats (1795-1821) is remembered, along with Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Blake, as one of the greatest of the Romantic poets. He died of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of 26.

Source: Author wylie6

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Authors Who Knew Medicine Trivia Quiz

These authors are best known for their literary works, but they all studied medicine, too.

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