حيرة الطبيب

by George Bernard Shaw, جورج برنارد شو

First staged in 1906, "The Doctor's Dilemma" is a play that revolves around a community of doctors, most specializing, unbeknownst to them, in different types of expensive, fraudulent treatments. Dr. Ridgeon, who has actually discovered a vaccine for tuberculosis, is conflicted about administering his limited remedy, for the husband of a woman he is in love with can pay, but his kind yet poverty-stricken colleague Dr. Blenkinsop cannot. Shaw's drama highlights the medical predicament of his day, that of treating patients with unnecessary practices to earn a living. A well-written, verbose play characteristic of Shaw, "The Doctor's Dilemma" still resonates with today's audience because of its thoughtful commentary on the continuing problem of providing adequate healthcare to the poor.

Genres: Plays, Classics, Fiction, Drama, Theatre, Literature, Humor

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1906

About the author

George Bernard Shaw stands as one of the most prolific and influential intellectuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a man whose literary output was matched only by his fervent commitment to social reform. Rising from a modest background in Dublin to become a global icon of letters, Shaw redefined the purpose of the stage, transforming it from a place of mere entertainment into a forum for rigorous intellectual debate and moral inquiry. His unique "Shavian" style—characterized by sharp-witted dialogue, paradoxical reasoning, and a relentless assault on Victorian hypocrisy—ensured that his voice resonated far beyond the footlights. As a playwright, critic, and philosopher, he remains a singular figure in history, being one of only two individuals to have been honored with both a Nobel Prize in Literature and an Academy Award. This rare crossover of high-art recognition and mainstream cinematic success speaks to his versatility and the enduring relevance of his narratives. His dramatic work, which includes over sixty plays, often tackled the most pressing issues of his day, from the rigid structures of the British class system to the complexities of gender roles and the ethical dilemmas of capitalism. In masterpieces like Pygmalion, he used the science of phonetics to demonstrate the artificiality of class distinctions, a theme that would later reach millions through the musical adaptation My Fair Lady. In Man and Superman, he delved into the philosophical concepts of the "Life Force" and the evolution of the human spirit, while Major Barbara forced audiences to confront the uncomfortable relationship between religious idealism and the industrial military complex. Beyond his theatrical achievements, Shaw was a foundational force in political thought, serving as a leading light of the Fabian Society. His advocacy for gradual socialist reform, rather than violent revolution, helped shape the trajectory of modern British politics and social welfare. He was instrumental in the creation of the London School of Economics, an institution that continues to influence global policy and economic theory. Shaw was also a formidable critic, whose reviews of music and drama set new standards for the profession, characterized by an uncompromising honesty and a deep knowledge of the arts. His personal lifestyle was as distinctive as his writing; a committed vegetarian, teetotaler, and non-smoker, he lived with a disciplined focus that allowed him to remain productive well into his ninth decade. He was a man of contradictions, often engaging in provocative public discourse that challenged the status quo, even when his views sparked intense controversy. His fascination with the "Superman" archetype and his occasional support for authoritarian figures reflected a complex, often elitist worldview that sought the betterment of humanity through radical intellectual evolution. Despite these complexities, his core mission was always rooted in a profound humanitarianism and a desire to expose the delusions that prevented society from progressing. He believed that the power of the written word could strip away the masks of respectability that hid social injustice, and his plays continue to be staged worldwide because the human foibles he satirized remain as prevalent today as they were during his lifetime. By blending humor with gravity and intellect with accessibility, Shaw created a body of work that serves as both a mirror and a compass for modern civilization. His legacy is not just in the scripts he left behind, but in the very way we think about the intersection of art, politics, and the individual’s responsibility to the collective good. He remains the quintessential public intellectual, a man who never feared to speak his mind or to demand that the world become a more rational and equitable place.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of this play is, to be honest, nothing special, but it has one of the best death scenes I know. Louis Dubedat, a talented but morally bankrupt artist, is about to breathe his last:

LOUIS. Don't grieve, Walpole. I'm perfectly happy. I'm not in pain. I don't want to live. I've escaped from myself. I'm in heaven, immortal in the heart of my beautiful Jennifer. I'm not afraid, and not ashamed. [Reflectively, puzzling it out for himself weakly] I know that in an accidental sort of way, struggling through the unreal part of life, I havn't always been able to live up to my ideal. But in my own real world I have never done anything wrong, never denied my faith, never been untrue to myself. I've been threatened and blackmailed and insulted and starved. But I've played the game. I've fought the good fight. And now it's all over, there's an indescribable peace. [He feebly folds his hands and utters his creed] I believe in Michael Angelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt; in the might of design, the mystery of color, the redemption of all things by Beauty everlasting, and the message of Art that has made these hands blessed. Amen. Amen.

[He closes his eyes and lies still].

MRS DUBEDAT [breathless] Louis: are you--

[Walpole rises and comes quickly to see whether he is dead.]

LOUIS. Not yet, dear. Very nearly, but not yet. I should like to rest my head on your bosom; only it would tire you.

MRS DUBEDAT. No, no, no, darling: how could you tire me? [She lifts him so that he lies on her bosom].

LOUIS. That's good. That's real.

MRS DUBEDAT. Don't spare me, dear. Indeed, indeed you will not tire me. Lean on me with all your weight.

LOUIS [with a sudden half return of his normal strength and comfort] Jinny Gwinny: I think I shall recover after all. [Sir Patrick looks significantly at Ridgeon, mutely warning him that this is the end].

MRS DUBEDAT [hopefully] Yes, yes: you shall.

LOUIS. Because I suddenly want to sleep. Just an ordinary sleep.

MRS DUBEDAT [rocking him] Yes, dear. Sleep. [He seems to go to sleep. Walpole makes another movement. She protests]. Sh--sh: please don't disturb him. [His lips move]. What did you say, dear? [In great distress] I can't listen without moving him. [His lips move again; Walpole bends down and listens].

WALPOLE. He wants to know is the newspaper man here.

THE NEWSPAPER MAN [excited; for he has been enjoying himself enormously] Yes, Mr Dubedat. Here I am.

[Walpole raises his hand warningly to silence him. Sir Ralph sits down quietly on the sofa and frankly buries his face in his handkerchief.]

MRS DUBEDAT [with great relief] Oh that's right, dear: don't spare me: lean with all your weight on me. Now you are really resting.

[Sir Patrick quickly comes forward and feels Louis's pulse; then takes him by the shoulders.]

SIR PATRICK. Let me put him back on the pillow, ma'am. He will be better so.

MRS DUBEDAT [piteously] Oh no, please, please, doctor. He is not tiring me; and he will be so hurt when he wakes if he finds I have put him away.

SIR PATRICK. He will never wake again. [He takes the body from her and replaces it in the chair. Ridgeon, unmoved, lets down the back and makes a bier of it].

MRS DUBEDAT [who has unexpectedly sprung to her feet, and stands dry-eyed and stately] Was that death?

WALPOLE. Yes.

MRS DUBEDAT [with complete dignity] Will you wait for me a moment? I will come back. [She goes out].

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a play by the literary giant George Bernard Shaw. Shaw was of course a advocate of liberal and socialist thought. He was also a good friend and sparring partner with one of my favorites, G.K. Chesterton. This play is about a doctor who has recently been knighted for his development of a cure of Tuberculosis. He has only enough time and resources to take on one more patient, and he is faced with the decision to cure a good but poor medical colleague or a talented artist who is a bit of a con-artist.

The play is comic and demonstrates his humor (or humour since he's British) and wit, but touches on very serious themes of morality, medical ethics, and socialized health care. Basically, what is pictured in this play are doctor's who are driven, not by patient care but by self-interest and profitability. Thus, it is a kind of indictment against capitalistic health-care systems. And for that reason, it feels as if it is as relevant today as it was originally in 1906.

I think you will enjoy it, even if ultimately you don't subscribe to its worldview.

(I listed to this as an audiobook performed by the L.A. Theater Co. I recommend it.)

[Christina (A Reader of Fictions) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The play seems primarily a forum for George Bernard Shaw to moralise about the evils of doctors who run private practices. Aspects of his thinking, expounded on at length in his prologue to the play, are still applicable today, while others have not aged well (he's staunchly anti-vaccination, for example). Parts of this are interesting and thought-provoking, but I read this for the play, not philosophizing on medical practices, and the play's a bit lacking; it bows under the weight of the prologue that came before it (the prologue, you should note, is as long as the play itself). While Bernard Shaw made some fascinating arguments in the prologue, the play makes them more weakly, albeit more entertainingly, and does not come to as clear a point. Though I enjoyed the play more, the prologue was more effective.

Though I didn't personally enjoy it, I'm giving it two stars for provoking interesting mental dialogues.

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dilemma in the title of "The Doctor's Dilemma" is an interesting, if artificial, quandary. A doctor has developed a successful cure for tuberculosis, but supposedly (this is the artificial part) he can treat ten patients at a time. Should he use his last slot to help a talented artist who is a faithless, amoral human being, or a humble doctor friend?

Shaw's depiction of doctors is slanted in the extreme. Each doctor apparently comes up with a single approach to illness, which he follows no matter the patient. In his lengthy preface to the play, Shaw makes some strong points—for instance, that a poor doctor may be motivated more by profit incentive than what is best for the patient. He follows this line of reasoning to argue that doctors should be paid a fixed salary by the state rather than be paid per service. Well enough; this is basically what Great Britain has done with the NHS. But he also suggests that vaccines are part of a big conspiracy as well. And he is equally convinced that he is right about this.

Shaw's plays are always provocative, sometimes maddening, sometimes humorous. In this play, he has the artist character namecheck "Mr. Shaw" himself. But overall I would wait on "The Doctor's Dilemma" until you've read some of his less problematic plays.

[Shelbi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am really starting to understand why George Bernard Shaw is held in such high regard in the literary world. He is an incredible writer. Shaw is one of the most opinionated authors that I have ever come across, but he writes in such a persuasive way that even if my opinion may differ, I still enjoy the story. Doctor's Dilemma was no different. In this play, Shaw toys with the idea of many different kinds of doctors. Doctors all believe that they are right, but often that other doctors are not, so who is in the wrong? Doctors are given our lives in their hands and only they choose if we are to continue to live or not. The concept of the play really makes you think about doctors in a new light. Especially when the main character must choose if he wants to save a dying artist or sacrifice him in order to marry the widow when he has passed.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very clever, makes cutting social points about death and the medical profession--still highly relevant (considering the ongoing NHS debates in the UK, or healthcare debate in the US for that matter..) One of my favourite quotes from the play: 'every profession is a conspiracy against the laity'. Brilliantly witty as ever for Shaw.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a problem play full of rather unsavoury characters -- perhaps the most unsavoury collection of souls in any play by George Bernard Shaw -- The Doctor's Dilemma is quite deliciously funny.

It's possible, though, that the dark humour works best on those with a dark bent, and more so during a pandemic when the dilemmas doctors face are a common part of everything we see and hear in the COVID ravaged world around us.

Shaw provides a full and robust examination of the Doctor's Dilemma with some results that could (and maybe should) make us cringe even with all the laughter that supports the action, if not for the fact that the dilemma is solved almost everyday in the most unethical ways without any of us blinking an eye. It is easy for we audience members to deplore a stage debate about who is "worthy" of being saved, or to pretend shock for some of the other motives at work in Shaw's play, but our governments and cultures have answered the dilemma by making those worthy of being saved easy to determine: if you can afford it you can be saved.

Of course there are many countries who have universal healthcare and would seem to have put that dilemma to rest, yet they are countries rich enough to create COVID vaccines (it's interesting to note that Shaw, in The Doctor's Dilemma, suggests that vaccines are a scam, but one doubts he would feel that way today), produce COVID vaccines, and horde COVID vaccines, thus keeping them away from other, poorer nations who simply cannot afford to be saved. Perhaps entire health care systems from governments down should be driven by ethics, rather than simply the Doctors we expect to be ethical touchstones.

All of which is to say that Shaw's brilliant The Doctor's Dilemma is as relevant today as the day it was written. And the lessens therein? I doubt we will ever truly learn them.

[Boadicea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated & somewhat derelict play with a polemic for an extended preface outlining Shaw's contrary views on vivisection, vaccination, public and private medicine with a nod given to health care rationing, albeit at the personal level.
Whilst some of his arguments are still pertinent, many have fallen by the wayside as scientists have reduced our ignorance as to why some treatments work and others don't; how vaccination works by stimulating host immunity to a specific antigen(s) but homeopathy is a completely different entity altogether. And, then there's Christian Science...
The play is undoubtedly amusing as a tragic farce but merely for its time. I doubt that it would prove a popular production in this age. It is riddled with stereotypes and features popular caricatures of its era.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this full cast audiobook while skimming/reading the play in my Kindle omnibus The Plays of Shaw.

I realized fairly quickly after starting this play that I had seen a film version of it with Leslie Caron. While I enjoyed listening to the play, I would recommend the 1958 movie over this audiobook to anyone interested in it. The pace of the audiobook (too slow) and the necessary (but not always complete) stage directions interrupting the flow both detracted from my enjoyment.

Regarding the plot: Shaw has some funny scenes in Act 1 satirizing the successful "Harley Street" physician (Harley Street is a street in London that was well-known for being the location of society doctors; it is similar to the term "Fleet Street" meaning the location of publishers of newspapers). I was surprised by how apt some of the satire still is over 100 years later!

The main dilemma is one of morality: is it ethical or right to deny possibly life-saving treatment to someone who is a cad? If the availability of treatment is limited, should the moral and potential future usefulness of the patient be a consideration? Shaw also uses Dubedat to challenge the views of the doctors (and audience) as to the relative importance of artistic genius compared to obeying society's rules. Even the ending raises some interesting questions: Dr. Ridgeon believes that he has saved Jennifer Dubedat unhappiness and pain by preventing her from finding out what a bounder Dubedat really was and letting her go through life with her idealized view of him intact. Regardless of the moral issue of whether he should be making such a decision in the first place, is he right? Perhaps she wouldn't have cared! Her sense of right and wrong are not necessarily the same as Ridgeon's. To add to the "dilemma", the good but poor doctor who got the treatment denied to Dubedat has become something of a know-it-all, no longer the nice man he was before. So doubt is thrown on using character as a guide to who deserves treatment from both sides.

[Laura]

Free download available at Project Gutenberg.

[My Little Forest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morale, medicine, masterpiece.
There he goes, right on target, true to form.

[Dan Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

would make a great episode of Holby City

[Marlan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me three hours to slog through the introduction, and I probably wouldn't have made it had I not been hunkered down at a Silent Reading Party. Shaw goes into great detail on his (now sufficiently outdated) criticisms of doctors and the medical profession, and his writing waxed tedious. This was written in 1906, and Shaw was rabidly anti-vaccination, highly suspicious of the motivations of physicians, and thought good ventilation and sanitation would cure infectious diseases like tuberculosis.

Mind you, it is easy for me to criticize in hindsight, and in fact I agree with many of his ideas - vegetarianism, good sanitation, campaigning against vivisection, etc. I imagine this kind of work may have been influential in its time. But it remains hard to take seriously the clearly one-sided manner with which he writes.

Now, though he wrote like a biased codger with a major agenda, the whole bit (especially the dragging introduction) was interesting in a "history of medicine" sort of way. For instance, I now understand why people used to believe in homeopathy - the ideas of homeopathy and vaccination are quite similar. Further, it was interesting how some of his main complaints about physicians (especially their financial self-interest) still apply today.

The play itself is fun and easy enough to get through - Shaw sketches bloated caricatures of doctors and their funny opinions on life, medicine, and the people around them.

[Sudhir Pai · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankly, I found this play most disappointing. While this is perhaps owing to the fact that we have the benefit of over a century's worth of medical advances to contribute to our perspective than Shaw did in his time. But somehow I found the playwright a little too cynical of the Medical community. Even as a reader with very limited knowledge of the sciences, I could sense the prejudice in the play's construct which perhaps I couldn't accept. Maybe it offers an opportunity for a more contemporary adaptation for an amateur playwright today.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 4 out of 5]

"All professions are a conspiracy against the laity."

"Thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive."

This is perhaps the most timely of Shaw's plays for consideration during a pandemic that is overwhelming many medical systems and requiring doctors to consider cruelly utilitarian medical decisions about who should be treated with limited resources. Of course, in Shaw's manner, this serious critique of professional regulation and utilitarianism comes in a satiric package. Fitting for reading in April, the cruelest month according to Eliot.

[Jill Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost abandoned this book because the first act was so beyond my understanding or caring. I was persuaded to pick it up again due to some reviews I read and am glad I did. I loathe giving up books that I have invested time in reading. However, I'm not sure I would actually recommend that anyone else read it...

[Shashank · Rating 4 out of 5]

My recurring thought while reading George Bernard Shaw: so much common sense is quite uncommon and never this funny.

I’m beginning to realize that George Bernard Shaw’s prefaces are as good if not better than his plays, which is saying something because his plays are quite good.

[Derek Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked it! Main character faced a lot of gripping moral dilemmas. Side characters were hilariously pompous. Discussed some relevant (and admittedly some outdated) issues regarding the medical industry. I have more thoughts, but I can't quite organize them yet. Overall, good stuff!

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

RIDGEON. Yes. Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

[Salsabilinas Labiba]

if it's not for english class, i would not be reading this, i swear

[Rajkumar K. Warrier · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hilarious play by a master!

A very funny but thought provoking play. It is quite relevant even today, though the event is from early 1900

[siriusedward · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Alejandro Teruel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I read (Penguin Books, 1946) includes both the play and an extended essay, Preface on Doctors which takes up half the book. The essay is at least, if not the more interesting of the two.

Bernard Shaw -who was also an economist- uses his acerbic wit to attack the privatization of medical practice circa 1911. Perhaps in Britain or even Canada , with their history of a relatively succesful National Health Service within a welfare state, this may, even now, not come as so much of a shock as in the United States whose history has been largely dominated by the private healthcare industry to the point where Obamacare seemed to represent a radical -and to some an anti-American- break with the past. Shaw, as is his wont, starts with a bang:

It is not the fault of our doctors that the medical service of the community, as at present provided for, is a murderous absurdity. That any sane nation […] should go on to give a surgeon a pecuniary interest in cutting off your leg, is enough to make one despair of political humanity. But that is precisely what we have done. And the more appalling the mutilation, the more the mutilator is paid. He who corrects the ingrowing toe-nail receives a few shillings: he who cuts your insides out receives hundreds of guineas, except when he does it to a poor person for practice.

And he goes on in fine form:

Scandalized voices murmur that these operations are necessary. They may be. It may also be necessary to hang a man or pull down his house. But we take good care not to make the hangman and the housebreaker the judges of that. If we did, no man’s neck would be safe and no man’s house stable. But we do make the doctor the judge […] I cannot knock my shins severely without forcing on some surgeon the difficult question “Could I not make a better use of a pocketful of guineas than this man is making of his leg...?”

Shaw revels in scandalizing us by taking us back to Moliere:

Again I hear voices indignantly muttering old phrases about the high character of a noble profession and the honor and conscience of its members. I must reply that the medical profession has not a high character; it has an infamous character […] There is another difficulty in trusting to the honor and conscience of a doctor. Doctors are just like other Englishmen: most of them have no honor and no conscience...

On the one hand, Shaw savagely attacks the inconsistency of doctors who, on a witness box claim they could have saved a patient had their advice and treatment been followed while claiming that they did all that was humanly and medically possible should their patient have died on their watch:

Thus everything is on the side of the doctor. When men die of disease they are said to die from natural causes. When they recover (and they mostly do) the doctor gets the credit of curing them.

Shaw rants against “the craze for operations”:

There is a fashion in operations as there is sleeves and skirts: the triumph of some surgeon who has at last found out how to make a once desperate operation fairly safe is usually followed by a rage for that operation not only among the doctors, but actually among the patients.

Once you understand Shaw’s outrageous and provocative perspective you can figure out the finer details of his position by the title of his essay's sections “Why Doctors do not Differ”, “The Successful Doctor”, “the Psychology of Self-Respect in Surgeons”, “Are Doctors Men of Science?”, “Bacteriology as Superstition”, “Statistical Illusions”.

There is of course, a danger in taking Shaw’s arguments literally and his attacks should be taken as attacks that not only raise a laugh but rattles the reader out of his complacency and which can be used to sharpen his or her critical arguments. In fact I think some of his arguments could be used very profitably as questions to help develop a medical student’s ethics sense. Some of his arguments are outdated but a surprising number can still surprise, shock and outrage and force the reader to think more deeply about the issues Shaw raises.

Over half the essay is devoted to Shaw’s passionate antivivisectionist views : “Doctors and Vivisection”, “The primitive Savage Motive”, “Limitations of the Right to Knowledge”, “Cruelty for its own sake”, “The Scientific Investigation of Cruelty”, “Suggested Laboratory Tests of the Vivisector’s Emotions”, “The Old Line between Man and Beast”, “Vivisectinbg the Human Subject”, “An Argument which would Defend any Crime” which are not very far from, say, Peter Singer’s more contemporary views on Animal Rights. They again showcase Shaw's indubitable talent and gusto for polemics.

The play itself is very much a drawing room comedy which shows Shaw’s positively Wildean gift for wit, repartee and absurdity, but which occasionally falls into a didactic and contrived earnestness to get his moral point across which rather drags it down. He also overreaches himself by succumbing to the temptation to cleverly, but shallowly, bring in the value of art:

SIR PATRICK: ...Suppose you had this choice put before you: either to go through life and find all the [paintings] bad but all the men and women good, or to go through life and find all the [paintings] good and all the men and and women rotten? Which would you choose?

RIDGEON: Thats a devilishly difficult question, Paddy. The pictures are so agreeable, and the good people so infernally disagreeable and mischevous, that I really cant undertake to say offhand which I should prefer to do without.

We are distracted from the medical ethical points which are so well made and developed in the preface by the machinery of extra-medical relationships and personalities Shaw sets up to spin his drawing room comedy. While the relationship between the six medical characters in the play is very finely drawn, throwing in a gifted, amoral, manipulative sick artist and his morally ambiguous and beautiful young wife to whom the main character feels attracted, distorts the more interesting aspects of medical ethics and debases the play to the point where the doctor’s dilemma becomes the far more primitive one of whether to save the artist and renounce the wife or to let the artist die in order to woo the widow.

In short, this is a witty and interesting, albeit flawed play which has dated badly in its treatment of some of its medical aspects. Unlike An Enemy of the People in which Ibsen’s psychological acumen clearly outweighs some glaring medical errors, Shaw sacrifices the deeper moral dilemmas he so elegantly covers in the preface for some clever repartee and a facile, watered-down dilemma.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely a mixed bag for me. The Doctor's Dilemma chews on some vital ethical questions, especially ones that hadn't really been codified at the time it was originally written and performed. The story is quite engrossing, and the humour actually lands really well (I'll admit I laughed out loud at several points, and I was particularly amused by the doctor who suggested everything was "blood poisoning"). Honestly though, the actual ethical conclusions that can be drawn from this were really very icky, and you absolutely tell that George Bernard Shaw was an antivaxxer eugenicist.

I listened to the LA Theatre Works production which had solid enough performances all around. Their science-themed plays usually end with an interview with a relevant expert, which this one did. I usually love those interviews, but this one was kind of lacking considering the content of this play. The interview was only five minutes long and didn't really take the time to probe the most troubling aspects of this play.

Overall, this had its moments and I definitely did get some enjoyment out of it, but I was definitely pulled down by the very unfortunate and dated ethical themes.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

GBS used to take me by surprise. I always thought he's going to be more superficial than it turns out. Then he makes these incredible metaphorical imbrications. And he leads up to it. So you can spend all your effort being like, well that was obvious. But because it's so deeply well thought out it makes it much more palatable. I'll read more of his work because I expect it to be worth the pay off.

[Douglass Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of George Bernard Shaw, The Doctor’s Dilemma (published 1911); the story takes place in 1903
Act I in which the English Doctors are introduced. The freshly knighted Sir Colenso Ridgeon claims to know how to ‘cure’ tuberculosis by ‘buttering’ bacteria with opsonin which makes immune cells eat, or phagocytose, tubercle bacilli. Ridgeon claims that his discovery of a cure for tuberculosis ranks a close second to William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood. All the Doctors are quite full of themselves and too busy extolling their strengths and virtues to take much mind of each other. Walpole, the surgeon, ‘cures’ ‘blood poisoning’ by cutting out the patient's 'nucal sac' (an imaginary structure). Dr. Schutzmacher, a general practitioner has a sign that proudly states ‘Cure Guaranteed’. Sir Patrick (Paddy) Cullen extols science in generalities and stimulates immunity indiscriminately. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bennington a tall, debonaire, and most ‘colossal humbug’ needs make no claim - his aura speaks for him.
Sir Patrick asks Ridgeon if he hears voices and Ridgeon replies that he does not. Cullen says that is a ‘good thing’ because anyone who hears voices And thinks that his work ranks with William Harvey’s, should be ‘locked up’. Additional lightness is brought to the scene by the medical student Redpenny who often fails to show the proper respect and Emmy the serving woman.
Act II in which Louis is presented by his ‘wife’ Mrs. Dubedat, to the Doctors, over dinner at a local pub. Judgments are passed on Louis: from a great artist based on his sketches; to a rake for trying to borrow money from each of the Doctors at different points; to an immoral ‘liar’ when his ‘real’ wife shows up with her marriage certificate; and as an object of envy for his artistic skills and the beauty of the woman Jenny, over whom he holds sway, married or not. Shaw makes it clear that Ridgeon has limited opsonin and can nary ‘cure’ one more tuberculous patient - choices will have to be made.
Act III in Louis Dubedat’s studio. Various hypocrisies are laid bare. Ridgeon can only ‘cure’ 10 people of their tuberculosis – he has carefully selected the most deserving – and now, there are two candidates for his final dose: Louis Dubedat, a rake and the supposed husband of a beautiful woman that all the Doctors desire; or Dr. Blenkinsop, a poor, fellow physician. The antics of Louis trying to ‘borrow’ money; obtain commissions for paintings he does not complete; and steal items such as lighters from the doctors - serve as sub-plots to the central conflict – who shall be cured? This is the literal Doctor’s Dilemma.
As additional sub-plots, Louis cheats poor Dr. Blenkinsop out of money; and Jenny Dubedat acknowledges that she is not Louis’s wife and she knows the maid, Minnie Tinwell, who is! Louis doubles down on his sins and failings, effectively dismissing the Doctor’s moralisms on social, legal, and ethical grounds. Louis does not appear to be bothered by the Doctor’s judgments, and their ‘wild card’ – Death - does not faze him. “We’re all going to die.” … “Not in 6 months”, the ever-practical surgeon Walpole replies. To which Louis responds, “How do you know?”
Louis gives a soliloquy on the inartistic professions as he alone is the Artist: lawyers threaten with prison; parsons threaten with damnation; and Doctors threaten with Death. Now he has crossed the line, challenging the doctor’s professional identity! Louis's diagnoses are established, he is a scoundrel and a reptile.
Louis unveils his ‘wild card’ – “I am a disciple of George Bernard Shaw!”
Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bennington replies, “When a man pretends to discuss science, morals, and religion, and then avows himself a follower of a notorious and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing more to be said.”
Sir Patrick’s response, “George Bernard Shaw? Never heard of him. Methodist, I suppose.” Louis responds that Shaw is the most advanced man alive, and there is no such thing as sin…
The doctors then argue as to who among them will help Louis with his tuberculosis. Walpole offers to operate until Louis makes clear that he wants the surgeon to pay him for the privilege. Sir Patrick decides that ‘he is retired’ so one of the others must step up. Ridgeon settles on the more worthy (albeit poor as a church mouse) Dr. Blenkinsop. It is left to Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bennington, who continues to admire Mrs. Dubedat, and has decided that despite his imperfections, Louis’s dignity and self-possession suggest he ‘comes from a good family’. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bennington will treat Louis ‘as if he were royalty’. The Act ends with Jenny’s rationalizations regarding all the things that make Louis appear to be a scoundrel, rake, and reptile, to the Doctors (Sir Ralph now excepted).
Act IV in which the Doctors reappear in Louis’s studio to conduct Louis’s pe-autopsy -before his death. The dying Louis makes a display of his love for Jenny telling her to honor him with her life and specifically to marry again, and be happy. Louis dies ‘splendidly’ leading Ridgeon to opine “I said the other day that the most tragic thing in the world is a sick doctor. I was wrong. The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not a man of honor.”
As the others argue, Sir Patrick opines, “When you’re as old as I am, it matters very little how a man dies. What matters is how he lives… Don’t waste your time wrangling over him (the deceased Louis). A blackguard is a blackguard; an honest man is an honest man; and neither of them will be at a loss for religion or morality to prove that their ways are the right ways. It’s the same with nations, the same with professions, the same all over the world and always will be.”
Act V takes place in an art gallery where Louis’s work will be auctioned off. Among the items on display is Jenny Dubedat’s memoir of her late husband – ‘The Story of a King by His Wife’. Jennifer and Dr. Colenso Ridgeon finish the Play in verbal combat:
Jennifer begins by congratulating Ridgeon on his wonderful ‘cure’ of Dr. Blenkinsop. Ridgeon parries that Blenkinsop had been made Medical Officer of Health and that he (Blenkinsop) had in turn, ‘cured’ the Chairman of the Borough Council. Jenny returns fire, saying that Blenkinsop had told her “the private practice of medicine should be put down by law. … private doctors were licensed murderers.” Ridgeon replied that public doctors ‘always think that of private doctors’.
Jenny asks how Ridgeon had the gall to permit Louis to die of tuberculosis that he might have cured, and then, come to see Louis’s work after his death? She answers her own question by alleging that Ridgeon only thought Louis was ‘a clever brute’.
Jennifer goes on to say that 'you living things' (doctors?) have no souls. Ridgeon responds that he has never seen a 'soul' while doing anatomic dissections. Jenny asks, if you dissected me, could you find my conscience? Ridgeon says he has met people who appear to have no conscience. He goes on to say that although Jenny finds him cruel, she consulted Bloomfield Bennington and Walpole for some time. Neither of them admired Louis. Jenny declares that there are two kinds of Doctors – the naturally cruel and those who learn cruelty. Ridgeon declares that he made no mistake regarding the lack of character of Jenny’s late and alleged husband. When Ridgeon goes to inspect a piece of Louis’s art and states he has chosen 5 pieces for purchase, Jenny tells him to put it down. All of Louis’s works have been purchased – by Jenny’s next husband! The Play ends.
The Doctor’s Dilemma is harsh, satiric, and humorous. Those watching this play get a front-row seat on medical hypocrisy. The doctors revel in their pomposity and demonstrate a complete lack of self-insight. The hubris of thinking that each doctor knows how to cure (albeit each of the Doctors favors a different ‘cure’) is only exceeded by the pride implicit in thinking themselves worthy of judging who should be ‘cured’.
George Bernard Shaw makes this attack on medical vanity 'work' by using two artifices of many accomplished comedy artists. He displays the pride of doctors in comparison with the pride of lawyers, pastors, and even artists. And he pokes fun at himself. These contrivances help readers and play-goers see the general humanity as if one were looking at a large and inclusive mirror. My father, the most important doctor in my life, would say The Doctor’s Dilemma teaches the most important lesson in medicine – humility.

[Bookish Dervish · Rating 5 out of 5]

The doctor's dilemma by the renowned G. B. Shaw is a play of four acts...clever, insightful, and delightful portraits of the human condition.
A doctor (the leading character; Sir Colenso Ridgeon) who has discovered a lifesaving cure to tuberculosis, must make an impossible decision. Whom should he treat: a kindly colleague who serves the poor(Dr. Blekinsopor), or an extremely talented but unscrupulous young artist (Louis Dubedat)? Knowing that he works at full capacity. And he could squeeze only one case. whom should he save? This is a smart piece of art in which Shaw explores a moral dilemma who deserves to be saved a kind but quite ordinary doctor or a cunning, immoral but genius young artist?..... To spice things up the playwright makes Sir Colenso Ridgeon benifits from one choice as he desires to marry the artist's beautiful wife (Jennifer Dubedat) in case he should die.
It is worth noting that though most characters are actual doctors, they are quite different in many ways. One attributes all sorts of ailments to blood poisoning, and the other is solemnly interested in stimulating phagocytes......... Etc.
The play satirizes the medical profession and comments wryly on the general public's inability to distinguish between personal behaviour and achievement. It goes further to describe the medical profession as being fraudulent.
We’re not a profession: we’re a conspiracy. All professions are conspiracies against the laity. -Ridgeon
Quotes
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I don’t think it is possible in medical practice to go into the question or the value of the lives we save. - B.B.
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The most tragic thing in the world is a man of genius who is not also a man of honour. -Ridgeon
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like all secrets: it will not keep itself. The buried truth germinates and breaks through to the light. - Ridgeon
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[Omaid ibn Naimet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought of giving this a 3 star as whilst reading through it I didn't feel anything special about it. It was only when I finished the book and recollected the events presented therein, I found how the message present in the plot regardless of being simple, can be related to in the present era and how true it is. Thence I felt unjust to not give it a 4 star.

Throughout the book I found it humorous how every doctor had this one remedy for all ailments, be it cough, fever or headache, the suspected cause of it for Walpole is just one, "Blood poisoning!". And similar is the case with other doctors, which doesn't fail to make me laugh.

Doctor Rigeons dilemma would have not really been a dilemma for him, had there not been his own selfishness involved. It is upto him to choose between a man who is an honest person, but would make no difference to the world with or without him; and a man who he finds to be an unfaithful one, a con man, but one whose life would very well make a difference to the world by his artistic work. Who he chooses to save amongst them, and why, is for you to find.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A talented man may not necessarily be a good one. As a whole I seldom read plays. This isn't because of any particular aversion to the genre but rather that other forms of prose are more numerous and readily available. This particular play has it all, humor, suspense and a mundane believability that weathers the test of time. A doctor, recently knighted for his contributions in the care and cure of tuberculosis, is busy being congratulated by his colleagues, when he is interrupted by the wife of a potential patient. Not really interested in taking on any new cases, he sends her away. The distraught wife stands firm and finally is admitted into the doctor’s presence. Her plea and obvious beauty move the doctor to reconsider his previous position and this starts a tale with enough twists and turns to rival any work by Shaw’s contemporaries. This play has all the elements the public drools over, love, death and a villain you love to hate. I can recommend it to many that love melodramatic drama.

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manages to be a comedy and a tragedy at the same time. The book describes the fallacies of doctors (something many a modern reader may chortle over), the selfish amorality of an artist (whom nonetheless accurately picks out the flaws in conventional morality), and the blind, almost frightening faith of a woman who worships the sick artist. Walking a fine line between the tragic and the farcical, this novel raised many valid points which will resonate with modern readers today. Alas, the punctuation made it difficult at times to follow. Despite this, it was still an enjoyable book, which gave me a lot to think about. Anyone who’s ever suffered from a doctor’s diagnosis and his unwavering faith in it, in spite of your attempts to tell him about your symptoms may get a good laugh out of this. Or might end up hurling this book against the wall. :) I was one of the ones who laughed. If you think you’ll be one, too, or you might enjoy this closer look at a variety of opinionated doctors and their crafty patient, you may want to give this a try.