Dr. Altim Thool is a character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.
About Dr. Altim[]
Dr. Altim Thool is a Solarian physician. An elderly and respected medical professional on Solaria, Dr. Altim Thool was a man of advanced age, likely over three hundred years old, with veins prominent on his hands and hair cropped to a snowy white. He was characterized by a nervous habit of clicking his fingernail against his dentures.
Thool was the primary physician summoned to attend to Gladia Delmarre after she discovered her husband's corpse and was later called upon to treat Security Director Hannis Gruer after his poisoning. His medical approach revealed the profound limitations of Solarian medicine; when confronted with Gruer's poisoning, he confessed his ignorance of the specific toxin and could only apply a direct neuromuscular stimulus to prevent paralysis, otherwise letting "nature take its course," citing a complete lack of experience with such cases in over two centuries.
Thool's deep-seated adherence to Solarian taboos was further illustrated when he revealed that viewing a corpse was considered beyond the pale for a doctor, and even his necessary physical examination of Gladia was conducted with extreme embarrassment and cohibition on his part. His most significant and secret role was that of the biological father of Gladia Delmarre, a fact he kept hidden due to social stigma but of which he was intensely proud, considering her existence a triumph of his genes. This hidden paternal relationship became a key element of the investigation when R. Daneel Olivaw discovered it, leading to the theory that Thool had potentially removed the murder weapon from the crime scene to protect his daughter, a theory Baley ultimately found logically sound but humanly unreasonable given the old doctor's likely state of panic.
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