Bodies and Souls

THIS crusading novel about public medicine in France recalls a best-seller of some years back, The Citadel. It is written in the Zola tradition by a winner of the Prix Goncourt, who combines naturalistic treatment with an evangelical message. The story traces the career of a young doctor with powerful connections who, rebelling against the intrigues and professional cynicism of his ambitious colleagues, sacrifices a brilliant future to a sick girl and practice in the slums. Embedded in these pages is a veritable primer of medicine and surgery: clinical details of operations, of shock treatments, and of disease in its many shapes and forms—all of which has a gruesome but compelling fascination for the layman. The characterizations are solid and the intricate narrative has intensity and sweep.