--- title: "Doctor by Murray Leinster — Classic Ebook | Publica Now" description: "Read a free sample of Doctor by Murray Leinster at Publica Now — a public-domain classic ebook, readable online." canonical: "https://publica.now/creators/vito/works/doctor" --- Literary # Doctor by Murray Leinster [ V Vito ](https://publica.now/creators/vito) Follow $2.99 [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fdoctor) Secure payment on Stripe. publica.now never sees your card. Share Link copied Format epub Published May 03, 2026 Rating No reviews yet ![Doctor](https://fls-a13cb2d7-1b3e-4883-a0bd-297afd110a11.367be3a2035528943240074d0096e0cd.r2.cloudflarestorage.com/works/01kqp6xnqq19v6wxjf7hvpy9w2/editions/2026-09-06-html-v1/cover.png?X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=d29ce3bb571c165c97a702f29f7aee93%2F20260911%2Fauto%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20260911T144754Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-Signature=d051cace23b1b0a44463f3791221563d74b5f02fd80fc98d88cd3ec98d1c94e3) ## About this work Humanity has conquered distance. Its ships cross five hundred light-years, its cities span alien continents, and its passengers travel in comfort between the stars. Yet the greatest danger in the universe may be too small to see. Aboard the Star Queen, ship’s doctor Nordenfeld prepares to tend passengers bound from Altaira to Cassim. The liner’s hospital compartment already holds a quarantined shipment of botanical specimens, and an unusual crowd of women and children boards amid signs of fear and grief. Somewhere, a single molecule has changed. Able to reproduce itself through autocatalysis, it has become a virus known as chlorophage—and humanity must finally pay attention. First published in Galaxy Magazine in 1961, Murray Leinster’s “Doctor” brings medical peril into the vastness of interstellar travel, where the smallest alteration in matter threatens lives moving among suns, planets, and the immeasurable dark. This Publica.now Classics edition includes a new typographic cover and publisher opening and closing pages. Sample ## Take a look inside DOCTOR BY MURRAY LEINSTER Illustrated by FINLAY \[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine February 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\] Suddenly the biggest thing in the universe was the very tiniest. There were suns, which were nearby, and there were stars which were so far away that no way of telling their distance had any meaning. The suns had planets, most of which did not matter, but the ones that did count had seas and continents, and the continents had cities and highways and spaceports. And people. The people paid no attention to their insignificance. They built ships which went through emptiness beyond imagining, and they landed upon planets and rebuilt them to their own liking. Suns flamed terribly, renting their impertinence, and storms swept across the planets they preëmpted, but the people built more strongly and were secure. Everything in the universe was bigger or stronger than the people, but they ignored the fact. They went about the businesses they had contrived for themselves. They were not afraid of anything until somewhere on a certain small planet an infinitesimal single molecule changed itself. It was one molecule among unthinkably many, upon one planet of one solar system among uncountable star clusters. It was not exactly alive, but it acted as if it were, in which it was like all the important matter of the cosmos. It was actually a combination of two complicated substances not too firmly joined together. When one of the parts changed, it became a new molecule. But, like the original one, it was still capable of a process called autocatalysis. It practiced that process and catalyzed other molecules into existence, which in each case were duplicates of itself. Then mankind had… [ Sign in to buy ](https://publica.now/access?redirect=%2Fcheckout%2Fdoctor) The sample continues in the full work. 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