Writer and Harvard Medical School professor Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. first emerged into the American literary limelight on this strength of his medical essays, which couched cutting-edge scientific information in informal, engaging prose. When he began writing long-form fiction, he continued this practice, creating a series of works he referred to as "medicated novels." In The Guardian Angel, a troubled young woman named Myrtle Hazard is driven to the depths of profound mental illness.
