Anton Chekhov
Ward No. 6 I
124-147

Until the second half of the nineteenth century, hospitals were the kiss of death.  People who went to hospitals to be cured of illness found themselves dying from the deadly germs that doctors and nurses passed from one patient to another, because they did not wash their hands.  In 1847 Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian obstetrician, discovered that when doctors and nurses washed their hands with a chlorinated lime solution, they could reduce the deaths of children in childbirth from 30-40% down to 1%.  But his antiseptic practices were followed only after 1865 when Louis Pasteur discovered the germ theory of medicine.

1. Chapter I 124- “In the hospital…   “   How does the narrator characterize hospitals and prisons in nineteenth-century Russia? What do these pages tell us about the treatment of the mentally ill and Jews at this time? 

2. Chapters II and III Before he was committed to the insane asylum, how did Gromov’s relationship to society’s laws and its enforcement institutions change?    How does this relation affect his evaluation of society?  How is he treated by the doctor and the hospital?

3. Chapter V-VI What does this chapter say about doctors and hospitals in early nineteenth-century Russia? What success do they have in reducing mortality.  What are the characteristics of Dr. Andrey Yefimitch as a leader.  What does he say about the value of medicine?  about the significance and interest of life?  about the people around them and the present generation?   

4.  Chapter VII 140-2 First paragraph What question does Andrey Yefimitch ask himself?  Second paragraph Even as he tries to lose himself in his musings, what else does he think about?  Third and fourth paragraph What does he know about medical progress in the second half of the nineteenth century?  What is his dilemma in the last two paragraphs of the chapter?  What is his solution?

5.  Chapter IX  Summarize the different ways in which Andrey Yefimitch and Ivan Dmitritch characterize society’s decisions about who is sane and who is insane and about the morality, logic, truth, and justice of these decisions.  What is happiness for Andrey Yefimitch?  What is the joy of life for Ivan Dmitritch?