When Ethics Was of Little Concern to Medical Practice. (Re)Discovering Cronin

A. J. Cronin was a Scottish-born physician-turned-novelist whose professional experience undoubtedly left a mark on his literary works. The first half of the 20^th century was a period of uncertainties in medical sciences, lack of standardised practice, the absence of guidelines for the treatment of various diseases, and, sometimes, scarcity of ethical guidelines in healthcare research or medical practice. A connoisseur of the British medical system, Cronin was able to identify its flaws and transpose them into his literary output. His novel The Citadel was screened a few months after the publication. This paper aims to identify and discuss some of the ethical problems that The Citadel motion picture of 1938 portrays.