Martin Arrowsmith Timeline and Summary

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• Martin begins the book by hanging out in the office of an old drunk doctor. Martin likes to read the man's medical books and listen to his rants so that he can get a leg up on the competition for medical school.
• By the time Martin heads off to med school, his former mentor and both of his parents are dead. He's all alone and has to figure out the kind of person he wants to be.
• Martin quickly finds a mentor in Dr. Max Gottlieb, a great scientist who hardly ever leaves his lab. He's so challenging and critical, though, that he eventually pushes Martin away.
• While in medical school, Martin gets engaged to two women at once. He ultimately chooses Leora Tozer, the more down to earth fiancé. The two of them get married after a few healthy arguments with Leora's family.
• After he finishes medical school, Martin moves to Leora's hometown to set up a medical practice. The town (and Martin's in-laws) are totally suffocating, though, so Martin and Leora move to a mid-sized city called Nautilus.
• In Nautilus, Martin eventually becomes Director of Public Health. His lack of political charm and hardline views on health eventually get him run out of town by the powers-that-be. He and Leora eventually end up in New York after Max Gottlieb comes back from the past and offers Martin a job.
• In New York, Martin finally seems to have the freedom he needs to do the kind of medical work he's always wanted. But not so fast. It turns out that the Institute puts heavy pressure on him to perform research that has a practical impact on the average American. Martin hates having to cater to this kind of thinking.
• After bungling a major scientific discovery, Martin goes to the Caribbean in order to help save the island of St. Hubert from a plague outbreak. The thing is that the only way for him to test his vaccine's effectiveness is not to inject half of the island's population and to see if they die.
• While Martin stresses about the ethics of letting people die, his wife Leora and close friend Gustaf both die of plague. He's so grief-stricken that he gives out his vaccine to whoever asks, thus ruining his experiment in the process.
• Martin returns home a widower and soon marries Joyce Lanyon, a beautiful young woman whom he met during his time in St. Hubert. He actually kissed her while his wife Leora was on her deathbed.
• Martin quickly realizes that his marriage to Joyce is a mistake. The only thing that'll ever make him happy is the freedom to do his scientific experiments in peace. He leaves Joyce (and their newborn son) and moves to a shack in the Vermont woods to work on science experiments with his buddy Terry. He's perfectly content to spend the rest of his life alone as long as he gets to work on his science stuff.