Using exemplary historical scenarios, the present cultural history traces the transdisciplinary development of a psychosomatic discourse between the 18th and 20th centuries, thus closing a gap in research. The human being as a complete entity made up of body and soul is not only a topic for medicine, but is also of significance in literature and philosophy. The exchange processes between literature and knowledge are registered in concrete examples, and they demonstrate literature both as a cause of illness and a cure and as a method of representation and cognition.