Doctors in Fiction

Lessons from Literature

BORYS SURAWICZ M.D., M.A.C.C. Professor Emeritus of Medicine University of Indiana School of Medicine Past President, Association of University Cardiologists Past President, American College of Cardiology

and

BEVERLY JACOBSON Freelance Writer

Radcliffe Publishing Oxford • New York Contents

Preface ix

About the authors xi

PART QUE: EARLY DOCS

1 Dr. Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar 3 in Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

2 Dr. Stephen Maturin 11 in The Aubrey-Maturin Chronicles by Patrick O'Brian

3 Dr. Tertius Lydgate 22 in Middle/march by George Eliot

PART TWO: IDEALISTIC DOCTORS

4 Dr. Martin Arrowsmith 31

in Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

5 Dr. Andrew Manson 41

in The Citadel by AJ. Cronin

6 Dr. Lucas Marsh 52

in Not as a Stranger by Morton Thompson

7 Cancer Ward 59

by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

8 Doctors on the Island of Capri 66

Dr. Axei Munthe

in The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe Dr Elisabeth Moor

in An Impossible Woman The Memoirs ofDottoressa Moor by Elisabeth Moor with an introduction by Graham Greene

9 Dr Bernard Rieux 74

in The Plague by Albert Camus

PART THREE: DESTROYED CAREERS

10 Dr Antome Thibault 83

in Les Thibault by Roger Martin du Gard

11 Dr Ravic 93

in Arch of Triumph by Erich Maria Remarque

12 Dr Yuri Zhivago 100

in Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

PART FOUR: NOVEL PSYCHIATRISTS

13 Dr Dick Diver 111

in Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald

14 Dr Howard Berger 117

in Ordinary People by Judith Guest

15 Dr Johanna Von Haller 120

in The Manticore by Robertson Davies

16 Dr Jonathan Hullah 127 in The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies

PART FIVE: DISPIRITED DOCTORS

17 Ward No 6 and Other Stories 135 by Anton Chekhov

18 Physicians in the world of Graham Greene 143 A Burnt-Out Case

The Human Factor

The Honorary Consul PART SIX: ABORTION

19 Drs. Wilbur Larch and Homer Wells [alias Dr. Fuzzy Stone] 153 in The Cider House Rules by John Irving

20 Dr. Henry Wilbourne 158 in The Wild Palms by William Faulkner

PART SEVEN: SATIRIZED DOCTORS

21 Satire from the 17th to the 20th century 165 The Flying Doctor by Moliere The Doctor in Spite of Himself by Moliere Pygmalion and Three Other Plays by George Bernard Shaw The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek

PART EIGHT: DOCTORS IN DRAMAS

22 Doctors in the plays Ivanov, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and The Three Sisters 177 by Anton Chekhov

23 Dr. Thomas Stockman 181

in An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen

PART NINE: CONTEMPORARY DOCTORS

24 Dr. Benjamin Rubin 187 in Open Heart by A.B. Yehoshua

25 Dr. Henry Perowne 194 in Saturday by Ian McEwan