The Slow Doctor

This story wastes no time getting to the foreshadowing; in the first few lines a dead rat is introduced – creating an eerie tone that will be held throughout the upcoming pages. The main character, a doctor named Bernardo Rieux, makes house calls, and in this way of traveling around he learns of the dead rats. When he first comes across one on his doorstep he thinks nothing about it, although he lives on the second floor. I just found it kind of astonishing that, being a doctor, when he encountered a second rat wobbling towards him, who then collapses spewing blood, he doesn’t give it any thought. As a reader with no medical background, the ailment that was traveling like wildfire through the rat population immediately roused my interest and led me to think about a possible human infestation. I found it unusual that the doctor was not more inquisitive into the cause of the rat “plague” and its possible impact on humans. Even with something as unnatural as the rats coming out of their holes to die, the doctor only comments on how it “get[s] on one’s nerves” (13). In fact, every person with whom the doctor speaks seems to be more concerned with the appalling death toll of the rats than the doctor. All of the clients he visits in some way or anther make a comment in regards to the unusualness of the situation, and he appears neither curious nor suspicious. Finally, after seven pages (about 4 days) detailing the high death rate and the distress it is causing, does he show some concern and tell the Municipal Office to look into it.