"Unhistoric Acts:" Lydgate and Medical Reform in George Eliot's Middlemarch

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2014
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Haverford College. Department of English
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Award
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eng
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Open Access
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Tertius Lydgate, a reform-minded physician in George Eliot's Middlemarch, sets out to change medication dispensing practices, distinguish between different stages of fever, and determine the underlying structure of tissue. No critic, reader, or sane person would argue that Lydgate completes his reforms. He ends up in London, oscillating back and forth between the bustling city and a Continental bath, treating wealthy patients who deal with wealthy diseases. Yet, George Eliot asks us all to recognize a powerful truth: "… the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life …" (Eliot, 838) Thus, even though Lydgate does not accomplish many of the major reforms he hopes to, the many "unhistoric acts" Lydgate performs throughout Middlemarch do amount to a success, however small. Lydgate combines the best of conventional 18th and 19th century clinical practice with new reforms to create an innovative treatment method that helps him successfully heal many patients throughout Middlemarch. Lydgate, then, does make a small scale change to medical practice and does make an impact on the lives of a few people--and that matters.
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