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This book is written around one theme to which the author keeps returning again and again. We cannot control the things which happen to us but we can control the way in which we live our lives and the choices we make. This theme is worked out against the background of Edinburgh in the 1820s and the beginning of modern medicine.
Robbie’s mother has breast cancer. Dr Knox operates on her and removes the breast – without an anaesthetic. She dies a week later. Robbie was a small boy at the time. He had been standing outside the operating room and he always remembers his mother’s screams.
After his mother’s death the family starts to disintegrate. His father is distraught but makes an attempt to pull himself together. Then there is a great fire in Edinburgh. Robbie’s father is in insurance and he is ruined. He starts to drink heavily and then he disappears leaving Robbie to look after his young sister as best he can. Robbie blames Dr Knox both for his mother’s death and for the ruination of the family’s fortunes. He starts to wait outside the Doctor’s house and even manages to get inside where he comes face to face with his hated enemy. Robbie even ends up spending a night in jail.
Then Robbie begins to realise what allowing Knox to dominate his life is doing to him. He decides to try to forget the doctor and rebuild his life. He might have succeeded but for an unlucky chance. One night he comes across Burke and Hare and agrees to act as a lookout for them. Later he accompanies them back to the inn and drinks with them. After this Robbie starts to drink heavily – just like his father. Then his sister meets a young medical student, Joseph. Joseph makes Robbie see just how low he has sunk and gives him a chance to redeem himself and learn the truth about Knox. But is Robbie able to seize this last chance?
Apart from the medical aspects this book gives a good picture of the Edinburgh of the first part of the nineteenth century. The cramped living conditions, filth, utter poverty and debauchery of the Old Town are sharply contrasted with the elegance, spaciousness, wealth and culture of the New Town.
A historical note is included and this makes us all realise just what a debt we owe to Dr Simpson and the pioneers of modern medicine.
Young adult.
This is one of the Sparks series of short historical novels for Key Stage Two readers. It is approximately 5,000 words long.
Edinburgh in the first half of the nineteenth century. Old Angus Crabtree is an odd job man in a large Edinburgh hospital. But despite the fact that he has a poorly paid job he has plenty of money and two suits when many a man has only one threadbare jacket to his name.
Angus gets his money because Dr Knox at the hospital does not ask too many questions. Dr Knox is an anatomist. He gives lessons and dissects corpses for students. The few bodies of criminals which he gets from the government are not nearly enough and when Angus says he can supply more Dr Knox accepts gratefully - and does not ask where the bodies come from.
Angus has a ready supply. In the dark of night he robs local graveyards. He is paid well by Dr Knox. He also keeps the corpses' clothes for himself or sells them at the pawn shop.
Twelve-year-old Jack Bean discovers Angus' dark secret and is horrified by such wickedness. He determines to stop Angus. Can he do it? And what part does Braveheart -- a little terrier who can bark loudly -- play in all this?
This story is scattered throughout with little touches which help to bring the nineteenth century to life. The unfortunate patient is muttering as the doctor operates. No anaesthetic. The doctor is wearing a filthy jacket and he sneezes over the patient. Jack is paid by the doctors for collecting leeches.
And when Jack goes out at night he throws an old sack over his shoulders to keep out the cold.
A well told, interesting little story which illuminates nineteenth century conditions. Comes with very useful notes on: grave robbers, Dr Knox, Burke and Hare, anaesthetics and hospital conditions.
7+
This is one of the Sparks series of short historical novels linking with the History National Curriculum Key Stage 2.
Tom's parents have both died of cholera and his sister Sarah is ill with the dreaded disease too. But Tom and Sarah are lucky. They are rescued by a Doctor Snow who takes them to his own house and nurses them back to health. How can they ever thank him? Doctor Snow has the answer. "You can help me solve the mystery of Broad Street," he says. "I'm a sort of investigator."
Tom perks up at this. An investigator. A kind of detective? But he is disappointed when Doctor Snow says he wants to find the cause of cholera. The doctor then goes on to explain that cholera has killed millions of people and that makes it a mass murderer and finding the cause would be like arresting a murderer. Tom used to live in Broad Street and the strange thing about Broad Street is that only people on one side of the street get cholera. What is different about the two different sides of the street? He needs Tom's help because the people of the street regard Doctor Snow as a toff. They are suspicious of toffs and they will not speak to him but they will speak to Tom.
Armed with a notebook in which to write down clues they set off. Tom thinks it is the air which causes cholera but the doctor says it cannot be that because they all breathe the same air. For a long time they seem to be getting nowhere. The people all live in the same kind of houses, they all eat the same kind of food and they all do the same kind of work. They do come across two clues, but they miss the significance of them. Freddy Snoddy, the local drunk, is convinced that the government is poisoning the water so he never drinks water - only ale. Then Mrs Casey always has the kettle on for her cups of tea. None of her family have ever had cholera, but that is because of the sprigs of elderberry hanging in the window.
Then over lunch at the doctor's house Tom mentions that the two sides of Broad Street use different water pumps. Without realising it he has given the doctor his answer.
This is a well told little story which really holds the reader's attention. It focuses on the cholera epidemics but, along the way, it also trickles in much information about Victorian London. At the end there are useful notes about Victorian housing and health, cholera, hospitals and Doctor Snow himself because he really lived and is not just a fictional character.
This book said something to me personally. While reading it I was very much aware of the mass cholera grave in a churchyard in the town where I live.
A short, but gripping little story with a very nineteenth century feel about it.