ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes representations of medical practitioners in fiction, encompassing classic and contemporary literature. Before creating Not as a Stranger, Morton Thompson wrote The Cry and the Covenant, a novel describing the life of the Viennese physician Ignaz Semmelweiss. It is believed that Thompson's interest in medicine came from his unfulfilled desire to become a physician, and it is possible that the obsession with medicine of Lucas March, the hero of this novel, reflects the author's own passion for medical life. Appearing post-humously in 1954, the nearly 1000-page narrative tells the story of Dr. Luke Marsh from boyhood through college, medical school and the early years of medical practice in a small town in an unspecified American state. In his practice Luke has to deal with end-of-life situations, which brings him into conflict with the existing practices that speed up the inevitable death by benign neglect or an overdose of narcotics.
