Amy Souza asked Julia Quinn:

I would love to see a character of yours delve more into the healthcare of the time. It would be nice to encounter someone like one of the real pioneers of doctors or public health that came from the time of the Bridgertons. It would be fun to use your other education information in this endeavor. What do you think?

Julia Quinn You know, I've thought about this. I do like to work this into my books, but not necessarily as the main focus. For example, in When He Was Wicked, the hero has malaria. When he talks about how it is transmitted, he's completely wrong--he said it's through noxious air (hence, mal-aria) but of course now we know that mosquitoes are the vector. As a science geek, it was painful for me to include misinformation, but that was was what people thought at the time.

I also gave Marcus a badly infected leg wound in Just Like Heaven. It's the sort of thing that would be easily treated now, but in the age before antibiotics, this sort of thing was frequently deadly.

Finally, in To Sir Phillip, With Love, I explored how clinical depression was viewed at the time. (Not with the main characters; the hero's first wife clearly suffered from it.)

Eloisa James has written a book---When Beauty Tamed the Beast---which has a doctor hero. You should try it!

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