Read by millions in thirty-two countries, soon to be a major motion
picture, and voted “one of the ten most-beloved books of all time,” here is
the English-language edition of Noah Gordon's masterworkIn eleventh-century
London, a child holds the hand of his dying mother and is terrified, aware
something is taking her. Orphaned and given to an itinerant barber-surgeon,
Rob Cole becomes a fast-talking swindler, peddling a worthless medicine.
But as he matures, his strange gift—an acute sensitivity to impending
death—never leaves him, and he yearns to become a healer.Arab madrassas are
the only authentic medical schools, and he makes his perilous way to
Persia. Christians are barred from Muslim schools, but claiming he is a
Jew, he studies under the world's most renowned physician, Avicenna. How
the woman who is his great love struggles against her only
rival—medicine—makes a riveting modern classic. The Physician is the first
book in Noah Gordon's Dr. Robert Cole trilogy, which continues with Shaman
and concludes with Matters of Choice.