Sinopsis

Though carefully educated in medicine and surgery, I have never practised
either. The study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest me profoundly.
Neither idleness nor caprice caused my secession from the honourable
calling which I had just entered. The cause was a very trifling scratch
inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me the loss of two fingers,
amputated promptly, and the more painful loss of my health, for I have
never been quite well since, and have seldom been twelve months together
in the same place.
In my wanderings I became acquainted with Dr. Martin Hesselius, a
wanderer like myself, like me a physician, and like me an enthusiast in his
profession....