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 "grave and sober account" of Cicero's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia. His text is filled with allusions and references to the leading thinkers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Pope and Swift were major influences on Sterne and "Tristram Shandy". Satires of Pope and Swift formed much of the humour of "Tristram Shandy", but Swift's sermons and Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" also contributed ideas and frameworks Sterne explored throughout the novel. Other major influences are Cervantes, and Montaigne's "Essays", as well as the significant inter-textual debt to "The Anatomy of Melancholy", Swift's "Battle of