"Deftly translated by Kirsten Lodge, this well-honed collection of Chekhov's medical fiction illuminates key issues in the health humanities for a new generation of readers, be they practitioners, current or future patients, or some combination thereof. Lodge's valuable introductory essay, which grounds Chekhov's fiction and philosophy in the larger context of physicians' development as a professional and social class in the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in tandem with excerpts of critical responses by contemporary thinkers, including fellow doctor-writer Vikenty Veresayev, provide crucial insight into Chekhov's medical morality. Against the background of today's polarized and politicized labyrinth of healthcare, Chekhov's core message of compassionate medicine as ethical imperative could not be more timely." -- Melissa Miller, Colby College.