BBC NEWS | Health | Why heroines die in classic fiction

BBC NEWS | Health | Why heroines die in classic fiction.

In the first half of the book, it is an episode of general swooning and not eating but in the second half, it is a life threatening fever - and you may guess what caused it. Yes, tripping through wet grass. Austen tells us only that the illness was an infection of "putrid tendency".

Dr Jane Leese, infectious disease specialist at the Department of Health, thinks that this might suggest typhus, which was also known as putrid fever.

And Marianne had just returned in a coach from London where it was rife.

However Dr Leese plumps instead for a streptococcal sore throat, followed by septicaemia.

On the other hand, Dr Neil Vickers, reader in literature and medicine at King's College London, thinks Marianne's illness is simply a plot device. He claims Austen needs a life threatening illness in order to return the previously overexcitable Marianne to the "sense" of the book's title.

Meanwhile, Wellcome History of Medicine director, Professor Michael Warbuoys counsels caution in back-diagnosing.

Heh. As much as I love 29th century novels--and I do love them, Internet, especially Wuthering Heights--I do sometimes want to slap these ladies and tell them to snap out of it. But remember, they didn't have antibacterial hand soap back then, so it's not entirely their fault.