A novelist-doctor tells his own story, from his poverty stricken student days in Glasgow, through his early experiences as a country practitioner in Scotland, a company doctor in the coal mines of South Wales -- and finally, a London medico. The hard times of the first half of the book are more interesting reading than the more prosperous days towards the end. Anecdote and episode rather than continuous narrative, this makes good autobiography with a vocational slant. The final chapters tell of his shift over from medicine to writing.