The terms, theoretical perspectives and sub-branches are, of course, legion. On the other hand, the enormous wealth of material – from the deformed pieces of meat in Francis Bacon's oil paintings, through the medical-historical novels of Per Olov Enquist such as The Visit of the Royal Physician, to the dissertations on the psychophysical background of disease conditions by the young Friedrich Schiller (a medical doctor by training) – opens up a wide and fascinating field of research for humanists. Like all the so-called interdisciplinary areas of the humanities, it brings new, unexpected perspectives to the interpretation of verbal and visual works, but also has problematic aspects, the most important of which is the limited competence of the vast majority of humanists in understanding and describing contemporary medical and natural science practices. The branch of humanities known as medical humanities, situated on the border between literature studies, anthropology, cultural theory and medical sciences, has been experiencing turbulent development for over a decade.
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