Chekhov's bottle

doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7261.645/a

From trainee to consultant, BMJ Group offers doctors around the world tailored information, special events, learning resources and recruitment services at every step along their career path.

... by doctors, for doctors, for patients
We are open for entries!

Online learning

BMJ Learning

High-quality CME / CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. BMJ Learning features hundreds of accredited, peer-reviewed learning modules in text, video, and audio formats. Find out more

Courses and Qualifications

BMJ Masterclasses

BMJ Masterclasses, led by experts, help clinicians to use the latest evidence and recent guidelines in practice and meet their CPD/CME requirements. Find out more

Exam Preparation

The leading provider of online exam preparation, helping over 167,000 healthcare professionals to pass their exams. Find out more

onExamination

Search all BMJ research articles:

From

Limit by

This article has a correction

Please see: Personal view

Access to the full text of this article requires a subscription or payment. Please log in or subscribe below.

Colin Douglas, doctor and novelist

Edinburgh

A hundred years ago there was a fine tradition in German and Russian medicine: a piece of professional etiquette of which I knew nothing until I came across it in Donald Rayfield's excellent Anton Chekhov: a Life.

In July 1904 at a spa town in Germany, Chekhov, in the last stages of tuberculosis, was wasted, weak, and breathless. Evicted from the best hotel because his desperate coughing distressed other guests, he was dying in a modest boarding house.

He received …