This classic is the story of Martin Arrowsmith. It follows him from his days before medical school to his days of a middle aged research scientist. But, it is much more than a chronology of events. Martin Arrowsmith grows and matures in a most believable way, and Lewis drafts this story with skill, drama, humor and excitement. In Lewis’s hands, this is as much satire of the medical profession as it is about the characters within it.
Clearly, according to Sinclair Lewis, most of the “doctors” in the field are in it for pecuniary gain. He acknowledges there may be some who are interested in the health of the patients, but most see their patients as a source of income, nothing more. At the same time, he admires the researchers who he alternately imbues the characteristic of integrity, and also abject ignorance, depending on the character. In other words, Lewis does not see that the medical profession is any different from any other profession or group of people for that matter. There are idiots, there are geniuses, there are men of integrity and there are charlatans and fools. So there is no need to hold them up on a pedestal, for if you do, you will be sorely disappointed, eventually.
In the chapters leading to the climax, Arrowsmith finds himself on an island in the West Indies riddled with bubonic plague. To be sure, there are other doctors and scientists already on the island, and they all have the same goal and that is to drive the plague out and cure everyone who has it. Some doctors assume authority they do not have to accomplish the goal. They use their authority to steal property, quarantine the populace, and burn down whole villages in their quest. That their intention is good and worthy is beside the point. They had no authority or right to do what they did, but they did have the power to do so. Having the power, they wielded it like a club and woe to anyone who stands in their way.
Even the idealistic Arrowsmith gets caught up in the power, experimenting on the native populace by inoculating half the natives with the phage that will prevent the plague, and withholding it from the other half so they could be used as a control group. In spite of the growing evidence that the phage is effective in combating the plague, he continues to condemn half the populace to a slow, painful and grisly death, all’s to satisfy his need for certainty that the phage is working, and its just not a coincidence that the vaccinated people survive.
As I read this at the tail end of the coronavirus epidemic, I am struck by how little the world has changed since the time Lewis wrote this book. People still clamor to follow the science, they listen to Fauci, they listen to the WHO and the CDC, even when the evidence grows and accumulates that nearly all of their advice has been wrong. For the past two years as I write this, the efforts to counter the effects of the virus have turned out to be worse than the virus. Yet the “science” continues to ejaculate advice without the slightest hint of humility or hubris.
But I digress.
After returning home, Arrowsmith devotes himself to pure research, but life has other plans for him. That is to say that all of his associates, from the Director of McGurk Institute to his second wife keep trying their best to control him and mold him into something else. How Arrowsmith responds to their attempts is what sets this book apart.
All in all, this is a wonderful book. It is timeless, (no wonder it’s s a classic) and should be read by anyone with a glancing interest in the human condition.
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