This work reflects on hypochondria as well as on the global functioning of the human mind and
on the place of the patient physician relationship in the wider organisation of society. First
published in 1711 revised and enlarged in 1730 and now edited and published with a critical
apparatus for the first time this is a major work in the history of medical literature as well
as a complex literary creation. Composed of three dialogues between a physician and two of his
patients Mandeville's Treatise mirrors the digressive structure of a talking cure. Thanks to
the soothing and enlightening effects of this casual conversation the physician Mandeville
demonstrates the healing power of words for a class of patients that he presents as men of
learning who need above all to be addressed in their own language. Mandeville's aim was to
delineate his own cure for hypochondria and hysteria which consisted of a talking cure
followed by diet and exercise but also to discuss the practiceof medicine in England and
continental Europe at a time when physicians were beginning to lose ground to apothecaries.
Opposing a purely theoretical approach to medicine Mandeville takes up the principles
presented by Francis Bacon Thomas Sydenham and Giorgio Baglivi and advocates a medical
practice based on experience and backed up by time-tested theories.
