The public's fascination with things medical and a general tendency toward candor in matters of health and the human body have helped make the autobiography of illness a successful and useful genre. Stewart Alsop wrote about cancer, Michael Halberstam about his heart attack, Norman Cousins about a rare and aggressive arthritic condition and William Nolen about cardiac by-pass surgery, to cite a few. This phenomenon has not been lost on established writers, who in recent years have produced a number of autobiographical works that have told us much about life, sickness and death. I do not mean to celebrate sickness but rather to suggest that a salutory aspect of being ill is the chance to measure our lives from a different and often instructive point of view. From them we are obliged to pause and observe more than we are accustomed to. The hospital beds, the wheel chairs, the sun porch are marvelous retardants in their way. It slows people down and invites them to take a look at themselves and their world. The author of "Vital Signs: A Young February 23, 1986
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