A Dialogue with Mandeville

In A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions published in 1711, Bernard Mandeville, writing by way of ‘Information to Patients’ describes three dialogues between an imaginary physician, Philoperio, and his patient, a confirmed hypochondriac, Misomedion. The book is original in its conception inasmuch as it represents an early recorded conversation between a physician and his patient. As such it represents a development in the writing on therapeutic technique of the eighteenth century. Though Mandeville's originality has been emphasized by contemporary medical historians, this book seems to have had little influence on the therapeutic style of the physicians of his day.