Chapter 2 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 2. Wilbur Larch was born in the 1860's to a mother who worked for the mayor of Maine and a father who was a drunk. While Wilbur's beginnings were meek, he sought comfort in his studies, which led him to attend Bowdoin College and Harvard Medical School. As a graduation gift from high school, Wilbur's father bought him a night with a whore. The whore gave Wilbur gonorrhea. Gonorrhea leads Wilbur to using ether as a way to dull the burning pain of the disease while he is studying bacteria at medical school. This leads to Wilbur's ether addiction.

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Larch delivers babies in the South End of Boston. At the time, this area of Boston is where the poor and the prostitutes live. One night, the prostitute Wilbur lost his virginity to comes into the...