Doctor Therne

The narrative follows James Therne, a physician whose past fame has turned to infamy as the nation abandons compulsory vaccination. In a time of war, revolutions and a string of scandals, the government yields to anti‑vaccination agitators, leaving the public exposed to a fresh wave of smallpox and other lethal outbreaks. Therne’s reflections on the recent plague in Italy and the medieval grain sickness in Eastern Europe set a grim backdrop for his personal reckoning.

Therne wrestles with guilt over the deaths in his native Dunchester, a town whose population has been decimated by the very disease he once fought to prevent. His inner debate—caught between scientific certainty and existential doubt—drives the early chapters, promising a tense exploration of medicine, morality and the fragile trust between society and its healers.