Summary Martin notices that one of his carefully nurtured laboratory cultures has “committed suicide.” He becomes vastly curious as to the cause. He is sure that the culture has staph in it. All one night he makes tests and at seven in the morning calls the hospital for more pus […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXVIIISummary and Analysis Chapter XXVII
Summary Slow and tedious experiments are not so to Martin. Tubbs gives the young man vague encouragement. Gottlieb asks him discomforting questions. For all his fumbling, Martin has “wide-ranging . . . unselfdramatizing curiosity,” which drives him on. Mrs. Ross McGurk, whose given name is Capitola, is a great uplifter. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXVIISummary and Analysis Chapter XXVI
Summary After a year in the Chicago Loop, Martin is not overwhelmed by New York although he does admire the Woolworth Tower. He finds that Max Gottlieb has aged in the last five years, but Gottlieb is still as demanding as ever. He advises Martin to study mathematics in order […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXVISummary and Analysis Chapter XXV
Summary Martin’s year at Rouncefield Clinic is spent among “Men of measured merriment,” to use a phrase coined by Gottlieb. He is “a faithful mechanic — in a most clean and brisk and visionless medical factory.” He and Leora, however, gain in knowledge and experience. They read novels and history, […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXVSummary and Analysis Chapter XXIV
Summary With his assistant, young Rufus Ockford, from Winnemac, Martin tries to clean up Nautilus and free it from rats, fleas, and disease. He has time again for laboratory work and is happy. Then a storm breaks. Martin and Ockford head a gang which invade and tear down unsanitary tenement […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXIVSummary and Analysis Chapter XXIII
Summary The Health Fair is highly successful until the last day, which brings both rain and fire. Pickerbaugh, with rare efficiency and presence of mind, takes over and prevents people from being trampled. Now he is more than a local hero, and his election to Congress is assured. Soon he […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXIIISummary and Analysis Chapter XXII
Summary Pickerbaugh is nominated for Congress by the Republican party and leaves Martin in charge of the Department while the candidate is out campaigning. One of Martin’s first acts as director is to quarantine Klopchuk’s dairy and one of the milkers with a chronic sore throat, found to be streptococcus. […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXIISummary and Analysis Chapter XXI
Summary Nautilus, under the leadership of Pickerbaugh, is among the first American communities to develop the weeks habit: Swat the Fly Week, Gladhand Week, Better Babies Week, and a host of others. Martin balks at More Babies Week as he believes in population control. Irving Watters and other such physicians […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXISummary and Analysis Chapter XX
Summary Martin and Leora are courted by “Nice Society” in Nautilus. Dr. Irving Watters, formerly of Digamma Pi, is now a leading physician, and he and his wife, the near-wealthy daughter of the manufacturer of Daisy Manure Spreader, undertake to initiate Martin and Leora into the social life of the […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XXSummary and Analysis Chapter XIX
Summary Nautilus, a town of seventy thousand, is to Zenith what Zenith is to Chicago. A few score people are wealthy, the rest mostly industrial workers. Mugford Christian College has never bothered to teach biology, much less the theory of evolution. Martin’s director is Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh, head of the […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Chapter XIX