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Which plays did Claude Bernard write before pursuing medicine?
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Claude Bernard
Claude Bernard, detail of a lithograph by A. Laemlein, 1858.
Before pursuing a career in medicine, the French scientist Claude Bernard wrote two plays:
- La Rose du RhĂ´ne: A short playlet that is now lost.
- Arthur de Bretagne: A historical drama written in five acts.
While working as an apprentice to an apothecary in a suburb of Lyon, Bernard spent his limited free time writing these works. In 1834, he traveled to Paris with the completed manuscript of Arthur de Bretagne. However, after showing the play to the literary critic Saint-Marc Girardin, he was advised to pursue medicine instead of a career in playwriting, leading him to enroll in the Faculty of Medicine that same winter.1