“Books,” exclaimed one man to another, apropos of the bookcart’s arrival, “They’re all that hold reason together.”
As part of an exhibit on display at the Homer D. Babbidge Library at the University of Connecticut, doctoral student Mary Mahoney has written and curated an online exhibit about the use of literature as therapy for soldiers during the first World War, titled Books as Medicine: Studies in reading, its history, and the enduring belief in its power to heal.
Guided through sections, the site visitor learns about the (American) Library War Service, Hospital Libraries, Prescribing Books, Contagion (both medical and social), and Science (in which you can use a form from a neuropsychiatric hospital to ‘prescribe’ a book as therapy, and peruse others’ prescriptions).