Genre:

Novel, Serial

Subjects:

Disease, Medical Practitioners, Status, Class, Expertise

    When Jane, the parlour-maid at the small house, fell ill 'the village doctor [...] expressed an opinion that the girl's ailment was certainly scarlatina', but Mrs. Dale was 'not satisfied with this [...] having herself maintained an opposition of many years' standing against the medical reputation of the apothecary' (263), and 'had almost made up her mind that the malady of her favourite maid was not scarlatina' (264). However, when Dr. Croft arrived from Guestwick on the following day, he 'pronounced as a fact that it was scarlatina', and the narrator comments, 'Village apothecaries are generally wronged by the doubts which are thrown upon them, for the town doctors when they come always confirm what the village apothecaries have said' (274).

Reprinted:

Trollope 1864