Basically, Butler's Erewhon is about all things Victorian, but what's most important for our purposes is the way sickness is treated in the novel. What's happening in the story is essentially that those who were truly ill are treated like criminals with great moral defects. While the truly redonkulous people in this fictional country of Erewhon are treated like they are ill and therefore not responsible for their actions.
Butler is responding here to the tendency in this era to blame victims of a profoundly unequal society on their own ostensible shortcomings. For example, as we've seen throughout this module, the poor in this era were often equated with disease and it was suggested that not only were they diseased themselves, either in body or in mind (and often in both), but that they were responsible for the infection, the disorder, and the chaos of the entire society.
Likewise, prostitutes—but never the men who employed them—were frequently confined to so-called "lock hospitals" for the ostensible purposes of protecting the community from their moral and physical corruption.
Butler creates this fictional country in order to condemn what he saw as the increasing—and wrong-headed—influence of legislators, social leaders, scientists, and physicians who too frequently "punished" the innocent for their suffering while permitting the guilty (such as the men who frequented the prostitutes) to go free.
So, let's think about the men and women who inhabit this country of Erewhon. Who are the "sick" in this country? And who are the "well"? And why does Butler make it so dang hard to tell the difference?
And how does this seem to relate to moral virtues in the story? Does Butler seem to draw a line between wellness and innocence? Between sickness and guilt? Why or why not?
We have so many questions.
Another thing to consider: Butler has been cited with calling for greater attention to mental illness. The book is often read as a condemnation of the shame associated with seeking help for psychiatric disorders. Do you agree or disagree with this idea?