Though a comparatist specializing in drama—Shakespeare, Moliere, Lope— I never heard of Romains' (Louis Farigoule's) Knock, ou le Triomphe de le Medicine, until my old age, here on Goodreads. A century ago in France people did not know inherited diseases could lodge in healthy-appearing associates. That is, France was not the U.S. in our time, where many cities’ great employer, their biggest business, is health: hospitals, clinics, nurses aids, nurses and physicians. Not to mention building construction an maintenance, plus janitorial support.
In Romains’ play, a physician Parpalaid has practiced for a quarter century with little impulse for house calls because everyone paid once yearly, on St Michael’s Day, September 29. He looks for a replacement in early October, who will have to wait a year to be paid. He chooses Knock, who is dismayed by the prospect of non-payment. But Knock has several advantages: he recently finished his doctoral thesis in medicine, he has a flair for business and advertisement (hiring the town crier, Le Tambour, to spread the word of free consultations on Monday, 9:30-11:30), also, he engages the town educator (Bernard, “Le Instituteur,” to spread knowledge of disease) and finally, he offers the druggist (think of Homais in Madame Bovary) a new profitability.
The prior physician, Le Docteur signs over to Knock, who enlists first the public announcer, and then the teacher to spread health knowledge and worries. Knock urges Bernard to hold a conference on typhoid fever, unsuspected sources from “eau, pain, lait, coquillages, legumes” water, bread, milk, shellfish (p.30). Bernard should explain about “bacilles formidablement grossis” large bacilli, about excrement from typhoid, giving details in full color. Bernard resists, “If I do that, j’ai n’en dormirai plus” I’d never sleep again (31). Knock corrects, “No, no you should speak so that they don’t sleep. Because their error is to sleep in error, awaken only from disease.”
Knock’s clients on his first free consultation are two women and two men, the first woman, La Dame en Noir, 44, “qui respire l’avarice paysanne,” owns a big farm with 18 cows, two bulls, a dozen pigs and two rams, six goats and many chickens. The next, La Dame en Violet, 60, dressed royally, visits the free clinic to set an example for her many employees, though indeed she worries about her investments. When Stock alludes to them, she says “Aie! vous avez touché le vif de la plaie!” you’ve touched the sore spot (40). She asks Stock about her investment in coal (how resonant for the U.S. in 2022, Sen Joe Manchin).
The Woman in Black has some digestive problems which Stock relates to her falling from a ladder; he writes a prescription, “ordonnance,” but mainly takes her off solid food for a week, only Vichy water every two hours, and a half biscuit twice a day, followed by a little milk, “un doigt de lait” (39). After a week, he’ll check to see if she’s improved, or is weaker, can only lie in bed (of course, such a diet will weaken her) and he’ll commence treatment.
The Woman in Purple, who still keeps six servants and a coach and four, who also gathers her salon around a Louis XV teapot, nevertheless worries about her peasants and her farms. She has had to sell a farm of 160 hectares (400 acres) named Michouille, from mycodium, hatred of mushrooms—so there are no mushrooms on all the sun-drenched fields. Her worries keep her from sleeping. Had she consulted Dr. Parpalaid? Yes, he had suggested she read at night three pages of law, the Code Civil. Knock reverses Parpalaid’s humor, suggesting some insomnia very grave, from circulation in the head, “circulation intracérébrale”(43). Stock offers hope of cure over a long period of treatment, with radioactive medicine. Since La Dame en Violet lives nearby, Dr. Stock will visit to treat her every morning except Sunday and Monday (because of his free consultations).