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The Doctor’s Dilemma

First published: 1906
Pages: 195

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About this book

Dr. Colenso Ridgeon has perfected a treatment that can cure tuberculosis, but he can only take on so many patients, which forces a hard question: whose life is worth saving? He must choose between a dull, honest colleague and Louis Dubedat, a gifted young painter who is also a liar, a swindler, and a charmer. Shaw turns the medical case into a comedy of moral bookkeeping, mocking a profession he saw as riddled with vanity and financial self-interest. His famous preface sharpens the attack on doctors and the incentives that shape their judgment. Beneath the wit sits a genuine unease about who gets to decide the value of a human life. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.

About the author

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was an Irish playwright, critic, and socialist polemicist who became the leading English-language dramatist of his era. A co-founder of the Fabian Society, he used comedy to attack social hypocrisy and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925.