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The Torch
First edition. A vivid historical novel, The Torch recreates the life of Hippocrates, his efforts to rid medicine of superstition and replace it with scientific proof, his life in the court in Macedonia, his treatment of the epilepsy of Penelope, and more.
370 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1960
44 people want to read
About the author
Wilder Penfield
48 books25 followersWilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS (January 26, 1891 – April 5, 1976) was a Canadian neurosurgeon. He devoted much thinking to the functionings of the mind, and continued until his death to contemplate whether there was any scientific basis for the existence of the human soul.
Penfield was born in Spokane, Washington (but spent most of his life in Hudson, Wisconsin) on January 25 or January 26, 1891. He studied at Princeton University where he played on the football team. After graduation in 1913, he was hired briefly as the coach. He then obtained a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied neuropathology under Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. He obtained his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He spent several years training at Oxford, where he met William Osler. He also studied in Germany, and New York.]
After taking surgical apprenticeship under Harvey Cushing, he obtained a position at the Neurological Institute of New York, where he carried out his first solo operations against epilepsy.
Penfield was invited by Sir Vincent Meredith to Montreal in 1928. He taught at McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital, becoming the city's first neurosurgeon.
In 1934 he founded and became the first Director of McGill University's world-famous Montreal Neurological Institute and the associated Montreal Neurological Hospital, which was established with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, 1934 is also the year he became a Canadian citizen. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. He retired in 1960 and turned his attention to writing, producing a novel as well as his autobiography, No Man Alone. (A later biography, Something Hidden, was written by his grandson, Jefferson Lewis.)
He was awarded the 1960 Lister Medal for his contributions to surgical science. In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Much of his archival material is housed at the Osler Library of McGill University.
In his later years, Penfield dedicated himself to the public interest, particularly in support of university education. With his friends Governor-General Georges Vanier and Mrs. Pauline Vanier, née Archer, he co-founded the Vanier Institute of the Family, which Penfield helped found "to promote and guide education in the home -- man's first classroom." He was also an early proponent of bilingualism from childhood onward.
He died on April 5, 1976
Penfield was born in Spokane, Washington (but spent most of his life in Hudson, Wisconsin) on January 25 or January 26, 1891. He studied at Princeton University where he played on the football team. After graduation in 1913, he was hired briefly as the coach. He then obtained a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where he studied neuropathology under Sir Charles Scott Sherrington. He obtained his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He spent several years training at Oxford, where he met William Osler. He also studied in Germany, and New York.]
After taking surgical apprenticeship under Harvey Cushing, he obtained a position at the Neurological Institute of New York, where he carried out his first solo operations against epilepsy.
Penfield was invited by Sir Vincent Meredith to Montreal in 1928. He taught at McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital, becoming the city's first neurosurgeon.
In 1934 he founded and became the first Director of McGill University's world-famous Montreal Neurological Institute and the associated Montreal Neurological Hospital, which was established with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, 1934 is also the year he became a Canadian citizen. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. He retired in 1960 and turned his attention to writing, producing a novel as well as his autobiography, No Man Alone. (A later biography, Something Hidden, was written by his grandson, Jefferson Lewis.)
He was awarded the 1960 Lister Medal for his contributions to surgical science. In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1994 he was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. Much of his archival material is housed at the Osler Library of McGill University.
In his later years, Penfield dedicated himself to the public interest, particularly in support of university education. With his friends Governor-General Georges Vanier and Mrs. Pauline Vanier, née Archer, he co-founded the Vanier Institute of the Family, which Penfield helped found "to promote and guide education in the home -- man's first classroom." He was also an early proponent of bilingualism from childhood onward.
He died on April 5, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 10, 2017
This is an utterly interesting, highly entertaining, serious book about human love, responsibility and medicine. Great book.
March 4, 2021
This book has been sitting on my shelf for -- wait for it -- 35 years. I know this because it was a gift from my grandfather, a small-town Southern physician who was, perhaps, somewhat disappointed that none of his grandchildren followed in his footsteps in that vocation.
This is a curious book to give to a 10 year old, not least because (as pointed out by another reviewer) it very much evinces attitudes that can best be described as 1950s Rockwell Americana. But let's leave aside for the moment the peculiarity of giving a stodgy piece of historical fiction to a kid that was, like most folks that age, more interested in Tolkein, graphic novels, and the 3 Investigators series than he was in reading about the imagined life of Hippocrates.
The book itself is fine so far as it goes. It takes a heady piece of arrogance to imagine that one can convincingly inhabit the speech, attitudes, and motivations of any fictional character especially when one is not trained as a writer, and more particularly so when those characters are (a) based on known historical figures, who (b) lived 2500 years ago. That Hippocrates comes across as as (ahem) a stand-in for a completely self-assured jock says much more about (I think) the imagined audience for this novel (American and Canadian physicians circa 1960) than it does about Greeks living in the Classical Age. Please understand: clearly Dr. Penfield had a remarkable career and is to be admired for his many professional accomplishments. But in terms of writing this sort of fiction, Madeleine Miller does it much, much better.
This is a curious book to give to a 10 year old, not least because (as pointed out by another reviewer) it very much evinces attitudes that can best be described as 1950s Rockwell Americana. But let's leave aside for the moment the peculiarity of giving a stodgy piece of historical fiction to a kid that was, like most folks that age, more interested in Tolkein, graphic novels, and the 3 Investigators series than he was in reading about the imagined life of Hippocrates.
The book itself is fine so far as it goes. It takes a heady piece of arrogance to imagine that one can convincingly inhabit the speech, attitudes, and motivations of any fictional character especially when one is not trained as a writer, and more particularly so when those characters are (a) based on known historical figures, who (b) lived 2500 years ago. That Hippocrates comes across as as (ahem) a stand-in for a completely self-assured jock says much more about (I think) the imagined audience for this novel (American and Canadian physicians circa 1960) than it does about Greeks living in the Classical Age. Please understand: clearly Dr. Penfield had a remarkable career and is to be admired for his many professional accomplishments. But in terms of writing this sort of fiction, Madeleine Miller does it much, much better.
July 21, 2023
(4.5/5) about a year ago while my mother and i were going through some of my grandmas old things, we found a big ol stack of books and i was over the moon.
this of course, was when i was still hopeful and positive about things. and little did i know that out of the 7 (i think?) books i decided to read, i would only finish 4 of them and only 2 of them made me want to keep my eyes in their sockets. this book is 1/2.
first of all, this book has not one, not two, but three maps! and it takes place in greece! as i have stated in my updates, i fell in love with greece a very long time ago when i watched mamma mia for the first time and now i longingly daydream of going there one day (and maybe reviving an old hotel where i raise my child and eventually i sing a bunch of abba songs while my daughter tries to figure out who her father is, who knows).
so this book gets such a big atmospheric point. i feel like the setting of a book really adds to the total vibe and i just think if someone turned this book into one of those aesthetic book tik toks, it would look really good! and everyone would hurry to read it!
that being said, i think this book is the epitome of no plot, just vibes. and i cant even be mad about it because the vibes are good! this will be the last time i say that, i promise.
but the main reason i liked this book (other than the vibes) is that while even though it takes place 2000 years ago and it was written in the 60s by a man! and a lot of the characters are pretty stupidly sexist (because duh), our main characters, the characters we like! are not. theyre generally pretty decent by todays standards and this meant a lot to me while i was wading through a lot of garbage that was the other books in my grandmothers collection.
within the first 20 pages, we find out there is this girl who is "hysterical" and one of the physicians suggests she get married and pregnant immediately because obviously people back then thought that a woman getting married and having a fuck ton of kids would solve every problem. i mean what more could a woman want?
but hippocrates, our hero, gets down to the root of the problem by, and i know this is going to sound crazy, TALKING to her. and he finds out she is in a very toxic environment and is most likely depressed because she is under a very strict set of rules and doesnt often get to leave the house.
so boom! feminism and mental heath advocacy.
also our love interest/heroine daphne is treated with a lot of respect from our main character and her father. she, however, is also treated with a dismal amount of disrespect from some of the other characters, but those are the bad guys, we're not supposed to like them. and we love daphne. she is a girlboss if i ever saw one.
we also follow hippocrates treating different patients and medical issues.
but really, must i say more? this books takes place in greece! i recommended reading this book with a greek mythology playlist on spotify, maybe a cozy sweater, sometime in the fall. i wont tell you what to do.
this of course, was when i was still hopeful and positive about things. and little did i know that out of the 7 (i think?) books i decided to read, i would only finish 4 of them and only 2 of them made me want to keep my eyes in their sockets. this book is 1/2.
first of all, this book has not one, not two, but three maps! and it takes place in greece! as i have stated in my updates, i fell in love with greece a very long time ago when i watched mamma mia for the first time and now i longingly daydream of going there one day (and maybe reviving an old hotel where i raise my child and eventually i sing a bunch of abba songs while my daughter tries to figure out who her father is, who knows).
so this book gets such a big atmospheric point. i feel like the setting of a book really adds to the total vibe and i just think if someone turned this book into one of those aesthetic book tik toks, it would look really good! and everyone would hurry to read it!
that being said, i think this book is the epitome of no plot, just vibes. and i cant even be mad about it because the vibes are good! this will be the last time i say that, i promise.
but the main reason i liked this book (other than the vibes) is that while even though it takes place 2000 years ago and it was written in the 60s by a man! and a lot of the characters are pretty stupidly sexist (because duh), our main characters, the characters we like! are not. theyre generally pretty decent by todays standards and this meant a lot to me while i was wading through a lot of garbage that was the other books in my grandmothers collection.
within the first 20 pages, we find out there is this girl who is "hysterical" and one of the physicians suggests she get married and pregnant immediately because obviously people back then thought that a woman getting married and having a fuck ton of kids would solve every problem. i mean what more could a woman want?
but hippocrates, our hero, gets down to the root of the problem by, and i know this is going to sound crazy, TALKING to her. and he finds out she is in a very toxic environment and is most likely depressed because she is under a very strict set of rules and doesnt often get to leave the house.
so boom! feminism and mental heath advocacy.
also our love interest/heroine daphne is treated with a lot of respect from our main character and her father. she, however, is also treated with a dismal amount of disrespect from some of the other characters, but those are the bad guys, we're not supposed to like them. and we love daphne. she is a girlboss if i ever saw one.
we also follow hippocrates treating different patients and medical issues.
but really, must i say more? this books takes place in greece! i recommended reading this book with a greek mythology playlist on spotify, maybe a cozy sweater, sometime in the fall. i wont tell you what to do.
May 10, 2011
Historians agree that Hippocrates was born around the year 460 BC on the Greek island of Kos (Cos), and became a famous ambassador for medicine against the strong opposing infrastructure of Greece. For this opposition he endured a twenty year prison sentence where he wrote very well known medical publications.
Hippocrates is credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally and not as a result of superstition, and gods. Hippocrates was credited by the disciples of Pythagoras of allying philosophy and medicine.[16] He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits. Indeed there is not a single mention of a mystical illness in the entirety of the Hippocratic oath.
He probably died in Larissa at the age of 83 or 90, though some accounts say he lived to be well over 100; several different accounts of his death exist.
He lived one year in the court of King Perdiccas of Macedonia,at Aegea, who was sick, but survivied.
Friend and pupil of Socrates. In the time of Pericles.
Although there are historical records of his parents and grandparents, two sons and a son-in-law (all three became physicians) there is nothing known of his wife.
Asclepius (12th century BC) was condidered the "blameless" physician of Thessaly and became thought of as a god.
Asclepiads (5th century BC) were Greek physicians who formed a family or gild and claimed decent from Asclepius.Hippocrates was an asclepiad and also a descendent of Hercules.
Hippocrates is credited with being the first person to believe that diseases were caused naturally and not as a result of superstition, and gods. Hippocrates was credited by the disciples of Pythagoras of allying philosophy and medicine.[16] He separated the discipline of medicine from religion, believing and arguing that disease was not a punishment inflicted by the gods but rather the product of environmental factors, diet, and living habits. Indeed there is not a single mention of a mystical illness in the entirety of the Hippocratic oath.
He probably died in Larissa at the age of 83 or 90, though some accounts say he lived to be well over 100; several different accounts of his death exist.
He lived one year in the court of King Perdiccas of Macedonia,at Aegea, who was sick, but survivied.
Friend and pupil of Socrates. In the time of Pericles.
Although there are historical records of his parents and grandparents, two sons and a son-in-law (all three became physicians) there is nothing known of his wife.
Asclepius (12th century BC) was condidered the "blameless" physician of Thessaly and became thought of as a god.
Asclepiads (5th century BC) were Greek physicians who formed a family or gild and claimed decent from Asclepius.Hippocrates was an asclepiad and also a descendent of Hercules.
May 27, 2016
The style of writing is slightly stilted and there's a definite (though not overly pushy) sense of 1950's thinking, but somehow I still found this book entertaining and even uplifting.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews