Fiat Flux: The Writings of Wilson R. Bachelor, Nineteenth-Century Country Doctor and Philosopher - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557286361 ISBN 13: 9781557286369

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press, 2013

Synopsis

Winner of the 2024 Booker Worthen Literary Prize Wilson R. Bachelor was a Tennessee native who moved with his family to Franklin County, Arkansas, in 1870. A country doctor and natural philosopher, Bachelor was impelled to chronicle his life from 1870 to 1902, documenting the family's move to Arkansas, their settling a farm in Franklin County, and Bachelor's medical practice. Bachelor was an avid reader with wide-ranging interests in literature, science, nature, politics, and religion, and he became a self-professed freethinker in the 1870s. He was driven by a concept he called "fiat flux," an awareness of the "rapid flight of time" that motivated him to treat the people around him and the world itself as precious and fleeting.
He wrote occasional pieces for a local newspaper, bringing his unusually enlightened perspectives to the subjects of women's rights, capital punishment, the role of religion in politics, and the domination of the American political system by economic elite in the 1890s. These essays, along with family letters and the original diary entries, are included here for an uncommon glimpse into the life of a country doctor in nineteenth-century Arkansas.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Wilson R. Bachelor was a Tennessee native who moved with his family to Franklin County, Arkansas, in 1870. A country doctor and natural philosopher, Bachelor was impelled to chronicle his life from 1870 to 1902, documenting the family's move to Arkansas, their settling a farm in Franklin County, and Bachelor's medical practice. Bachelor was an avid reader with wide-ranging interests in literature, science, nature, politics, and religion, and he became a self-professed freethinker in the 1870s. He was driven by a concept he called "fiat flux," an awareness of the "rapid flight of time" that motivated him to treat the people around him and the world itself as precious and fleeting. He wrote occasional pieces for a local newspaper, bringing his unusually enlightened perspectives to the subjects of women's rights, capital punishment, the role of religion in politics, and the domination of the American political system by economic elite in the 1890s. These essays, along with family letters and the original diary entries, are included here for an uncommon glimpse into the life of a country doctor in nineteenth-century Arkansas.

About the Author:

William D. Lindsey is the co-author of Religion and Public Life in the

Southern Crossroads: Showdown States.

Tom Bruce is former dean and emeritus professor of medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and inaugural dean and emeritus professor of health policy and management, University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Jonathan Wolfe is professor of pharmacy practice, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1557286361
• ISBN 13: 9781557286369
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: Lindsey William D.