In this simple, interesting story, Conscience portrays the difficulties and trials besetting the path of the young physician. He marks his high mission, the rapid progress of science as applied to medicine, and the importance of the observance of hygienic laws. Hendrik Conscience won his place in the literature of the world, which he held to the end of his busy career; the titles of his books mount up to a hundred. But while he was hailed as a great author by all Europe, the deeper and more enduring value of his work, which is the rehabilitation of a language and the founding of a literature, was understood only in Belgium itself and in Holland.