Treat illness in order: about medicine in l.N. Tolstoy’s diary, 1847

The article is devoted to the study of the genesis of the theme of medicine in the works of Leo Tolstoy. The main attention is paid to the author's early diaries, which mark the "methodological" period of his work. It is noteworthy that one of the first experiments of Tolstoy's writing is closely connected with such an element of the artistic picture of the world as illness. It is understood as an exclusively internal phenomenon. Therefore, treatment becomes possible only from within, thanks to the displacement of external elements and the organization of self-observation. The last, which is remarkable, is realized through the word. The consequence of these features is an interesting position of methods of getting rid of the disease, located on the border of medicine and pedagogy. At the same time, it is worth noting the paradoxical nature of the image of the bodily area in the writer's text. On the one hand, the body is in direct contact with the external world, but on the other hand, the narrator tries to streamline its activity in the same way as specifically internal activity.