Monday Books has just posted the first essay from Second Opinion on their new blog. The piece illustrates something Dalrymple once said in a speech: that while the prisoners didn’t exactly love him (he was, after all, known as “Dr. No” for his reluctance to accede to their demands for sick notes or drugs), he at least had their respect.
The Skeptical Doctor
Dedicated to the work of Theodore Dalrymple
It’s certainly an interesting idea to publish the entire content of the book over two or three years as Monday Books say they intend to do. Maybe they’ve decided that more people will become interested in Dalrymple’s writing as a result of this decision, even though they may reduce the number of people purchasing this particular book.
That’s certainly what we’re hoping, Andrew.
We are weighing up the number of people who will be happy to wait the time it takes to publish the whole thing online against the number of people who will think ‘I’d like to read (and own) that book.’
So far, we’ve seen a small uptick in sales of the book, so I hope we’re right!
(A reminder to readers outwith the UK: we send our hardback Dalrymple titles anywhere in the world free of postage and packing.)
Why would a GP refer a patient with back ache to a psychiatrist?
Cuiouser and cuiouser, said Alice.
Dalrymple worked simultaneously as both a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. If I remember correctly, his psychiatry work was confined only to the prison. But even there he treated the prisoners for both their psychiatric and physical ailments.
I’m pretty sure it was the reverse: he was acting as a general physician in the prison and, at the hospital, he was a consultant psychiatrist. As I said, Curiouser and curiouser.