RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Knock: a study in medical cynicism JF Medical Humanities JO J Med Humanit FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics SP 14 OP 18 DO 10.1136/mh.28.1.14 VO 28 IS 1 A1 Bamforth, I YR 2002 UL http://mh.bmj.com/content/28/1/14.abstract AB French literature has shown an enduring fascination with the social figure of the doctor. In Jules Romains' amusing play Knock (1922), and in its later film version (1951), the doctor as deceiver returns to centrestage with a flourish. Molière's seventeenth-century figures were mostly quacks and mountebanks; Knock is something new: he is a health messiah. By enforcing a mental and social hygiene based on fear, Knock brings a small rural population under his sway. Insouciance is banished by artful consciousness-raising. A society mobilises under the banner of medicine. But who is Dr Knock?