Doctor Slop Doctor Slop Dr Slop is a choleric physician and "man-midwife" in Laurence Sterne's novel "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" (1759). The doctor is summoned by Tristram Shandy's father to attend his son's imminent birth. Slop makes his first appearance in Chapter 34 of the novel, where he is described as: He is portrayed as an incompetent quack, arriving at Shandy Hall having forgotten his array of "vile instruments" and "obstetrical engines", which have to be urgently sent for. In performing a forceps delivery of the baby, Slop damages the infant Tristram's nose, much to his father's consternation,
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman It is only in a Shandean spirit that my matter can be approached. I have to describe something as odd and whimsical as ever entered the brain of Sterne; and if I could, I would gladly lead you to the same affection for my father as you have for Tristram's. Christopher Morley, Editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, wrote a preface to the Limited Edition Club issue of Sterne's classic. That preface appears in Morley's book "Streamlines" published by Doubleday - Doran in 1932, and is titled "Tristram Shandy". In the Hermann Hesse novel "The Journey to the East",