[T]o know which of Hippolyte's tendons to cut, it was first necessary to find out what kind of club-foot he had.

He had a foot forming almost a straight line with the leg, which, however, did not prevent it from being turned in, so that it was an equinus together with something of a varus, or else a slight varus with a strong tendency to equinus . But with this equinus, wide in foot like a horse's hoof, with rugose skin, dry tendons, and large toes, on which the black nails looked as if made of iron, the club-footed man ran about like a deer from morning till night. […] Now that it was an equinus, it was necessary to cut the tendon Achillis, and, if need were, the anterior tibial muscle could be operated on afterward for getting rid of the varus; for the doctor did not dare to risk both operations at once; he was even trembling already for fear of inuring some important region that he did not know.

Basic set-up:

Charles Bovary, Madame Bovary's husband, is a doctor in a small town in France. He's not the cleverest guy around, and he has to perform a difficult operation on Hippolyte, a resident of the town who has a clubfoot.

Madame Bovary is full of scenes of provincial and domestic life, and its focus on the mundane and the quotidian makes it seem very realistic. The intense focus on the mundane also helps us understand Emma Bovary: everything in her world is so everyday and, well, kind of boring, that we can't help but understand her desire to escape through love affairs with men.

The passage above is a great example of the way in which Realist writers try to maintain verisimilitude, or the appearance of reality, in their fiction. Flaubert certainly had to do a lot of medical research to learn about clubfeet—and how they were operated on—in order to write the above description. We're pretty sure he didn't just know this stuff from personal experience.

The details about Hippolyte's clubfoot are so accurate that we can't help but believe that this is all real: it's as if we are reading about a real doctor diagnosing a real club-foot condition. Talk about verisimilitude.