Physicians in Victorian Fiction

Abstract

My title is snappily alliterative rather than slavishly accurate, for I shall be mentioning some fictional apothecaries and surgeons too — thus, as the physicians of the period would have thought, lowering the social tone of my survey. Physicians were a touchy lot, and not only when they were resenting the ‘new-fangled notions’ being introduced by such enterprising young men as George Eliot’s Mr Lydgate or Charles Kingsle’s Tom Thurnall. There were also strong professional and social jealousies within the old tripartite system; the physicians regarded themselves as gentlemen, much superior to the surgeons and apothecaries. When it does not matter to which branch of the profession a practitioner belongs, I shall use the term ‘doctor’ though strictly speaking that title could only be used by physicians (Fellows and Licentiates of the Royal College of Physicians).