Arrowsmith By Sinclair Lewis Essay Research Paper — страница 2

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who is a professor in the university, gives to his students. “Knowledge is the greatest thing in the medical world but it s no good whatever unless you can sell it, and to do this you must first impress your personality on the people who have the dollars. Whether the patient is a new or an old friend, you must always use salesmanship on him. Explain to him, also to his stricken and anxious family, the hard work and thought you are giving to his case, and so make him feel that the good you have done him, or intend to do him, is even greater than the fee you plan to charge. Then, when he gets your bill, he will not misunderstand or kick.” Martin is constantly being pushed towards the commercial side of science and away from Gottlieb and pure science. Almost everyone in the

university is trying to persuade him to do the same as them and become a practical doctor who works for profit, instead of a poor scientist who works for years before producing even the smallest discovery, which may or may not help anyone. Eventually he gives in and leaves Gottlieb to receive his doctorate and become a physician in Wheatsylvania, North Dakota, the home town of his fiancee, Leora Tozer. In Wheatsylvania, Martin is presented with the life of a commercial physician, and he becomes appalled with it. He learns that being a physician is more like trying to make it appear as if you are helping people than actually doing it. He finds that their main skill is not actually healing the patient, but dealing with the family after they failed to save the patient. They glorify

their failure by saying they did all they could and more, and they spread the blame around as to not detract from their respectability. A physician in a neighboring town named Doctor Winter gives Martin this advice. “In a crucial case, you better call some older doctor in consultation not that you need his advice, but it makes a hit with the family, it divides the responsibility, and keeps em from going around criticizing.” Disgusted with this, Martin tries to be an honest physician, but he gets heavily criticized by all the other physicians and the entire town. The other doctors criticize him for not asking them for advice and splitting fees, and the townspeople think he is some hotshot doctor who believes he is above everyone else, and cares for no one save himself, which

is ironic because he is the only one who is truly trying to help them. After a while Martin decides to leave when he receives an offer for a job in a medical institute in the city of Nautilus where he is led to believe he will be free to research whatever he wants. In Nautilus, Martin works in a medical institute under its director, Dr. Pickerbaugh. Dr. Pickerbaugh supports the idea of pure science and research and allows Martin freedom to research whatever he wants, but only to a certain extent. After Martin has been working a while Pickerbaugh becomes impatient because so much time has passed and Martin has not produced anything, so he begins to push Martin to publish his research and let the world know what he does. So once again Martin finds himself being pushed toward

commercialism. Pickerbaugh wants him to publish so that the world may benefit from his work, and also so that glory and fame may come to Martin and the institute, which leads toward profit. After a few years Martin decides to leave after receiving a letter from Max Gottlieb asking him to work with him in New York. Gottlieb is working at the McGurk Institute in New York under director Dr. Tubbs, who has granted Gottlieb complete freedom in his research. Dr. Tubbs is a social-climber completely driven by commercialism. Everything he does, he does to profit himself and the institution. When Martin comes into the institution, Tubbs grants him the same freedom as Gottlieb. He is free to research whatever he wants for as long as he wants, and so Martin returns to Gottlieb and meets

Terry Wickett. For a while everything goes well until Tubbs learns about Martin s research and tries to get him to publish. Martin is researching and experimenting with what could possibly be the cure to many of the deadly diseases at the time, such as tuberculosis and the Black Death. He refuses to publish because he has not finished the research and to publish right away would be straying away from pure science and towards commercialism again. Tubbs wants Martin to publish not because it would help humanity, but because it would bring fame and fortune to the institute. In commercialism, everything is a race to discover and produce something and then patent it and take the credit. We see this when another scientist in another institute publishes the same discovery on which