Published in serial between 1759 and 1767, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy introduced an eccentric range of characters, several of whom suffered from some sort of nervous disorder resultant from excessive sensibility. ‘The plan’ of the novel, as Sterne wrote to a friend in 1759, was to take in ‘not only the Weak part of the Sciences, in wch the true point of Ridicule lies – but every Thing else, which I find Laugh-at-able in my way –’. Given the popularity of Sterne's work, it is clear that readers of Tristram Shandy did find the follies of its melancholic, hysteric and hypochondriac characters ‘laugh-at-able’. Furthermore, given the popularity of medical tracts concerning nervous diseases mid-century, it is likely that this folly was particularly appreciated for its familiarity to Sterne's eighteenth-century readers. Yet it is precisely because Sterne's audience understood his joking portrayal of the nerves and nervous sufferers, that it cannot be dismissed as anecdotal. Discussions of nervous disorders permeated not only popular culture, but also the philosophical, medical and political culture of the eighteenth century. It is for this reason that nervous disease must be examined, not as a humorous example of ‘science-gone-wrong’ in the eighteenth century, but as a window through which we can better understand the complex relationship between medicine and society. For as Sterne's character Walter Shandy wisely declared, ‘Every thing in this world … is big with jest, – and has wit in it, and instruction too, … if we can but find it out‘.