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Cutting for Stone Chapter 45: A Matter of Time Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • So Stone tells the whole story, starting from his childhood.
  • Stone's father was a drunk, and he loved his mother a lot. She got sick with tuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium.
  • Thomas started coughing up blood and was reunited with his mother at the sanatorium.
  • Thomas's mother had a growth on her chest that burst, shooting blood everywhere: it was an aneurysm.
  • Thomas's mother died, and Thomas stayed at the sanatorium, learning from the doctor there.
  • Thomas was healed, and Dr. Ross sent him to study in England.
  • Then Thomas's father died.
  • Stone went to medical school in Scotland. He was such a good student that he actually bought himself a cadaver to practice on.
  • Thomas got a job in India but realized he needed to leave when India got its independence from England.
  • On the ship to Africa, he met Sister Mary Joseph Praise—and we know the rest.