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The physician William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) was one of the most important poets in USA in the 20th century. This article provides some biographical data, examples of his poems and extracts from his autobiography, in which he discusses the relationship between medical practice and poetry.

The Russian author and doctor Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) died from tuberculosis in 1904. He had his first haemoptysis in 1884. In spite of continuing symptoms he did not let himself be examined by colleagues until he had a severe haemorrhage in 1897. He was then hospitalized, and extensive bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis was diagnosed. Even after that, he did not take his disease seriously. His attitude has been taken as an example of a doctor's self-deception. Almost 4,500 of Chekhov's letters has been published. In this article, the letters and contemporary memorial literature are used to illustrate the development of his disease and his ambivalence towards it. His self-deception was not that massive; there is a strain of uneasiness in his reports of his symptoms.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) was a doctor and a writer. He practised medicine in a rather sporadic manner throughout his life, and his main occupation was his authorship. His collected works comprise 581 items of a narrative type, 17 plays, a narrative and a treatise of his voyage to Sakhalin, a number of articles and about 4,000 letters. This paper describes the doctors who appear in 83 of his short stories and associated material, and shows how Chekhov's medical background influenced his writing.