Dr Thorne And thus Dr Thorne became settled for life in the little village of Greshamsbury.

As was then the wont with many country practitioners, and as should be the wont with them all if they consulted their own dignity a little less and the comforts of their customers somewhat more, he added the business of a dispensing apothecary to that of physician.

In doing so, he was of course much reviled.

Many people around him declared that he could not truly be a doctor, or, at any rate, a doctor to be so called; and his brethren in the art living around him, though they knew that his diplomas, degrees, and certificates were all _en regle_, rather countenanced the report.
There was much about this new-comer which did not endear him to his own profession.

In the first place he was a new-comer, and, as such, was of course to be regarded by other doctors as being _de trop_.
Greshamsbury was only fifteen miles from Barchester, where there was a regular depot of medical skill, and but eight from Silverbridge, where a properly established physician had been in residence for the last forty years.