Dr. John William Martin. "Thack" Thackery is the chief surgeon at the New York Knickerbocker Hospital and the main protagonist of the Knick. A highly talented and respected in the operating room, However, he is also a drug addict. He regularly spends his time injecting cocaine during the day and spending nights at a Chinatown opium den. He is portrayed by actor Clive Owen.
Career[]
John first became acquainted with August Robertson during a trip to Nicaragua, where August was being held prisoner, suspected of causing an outbreak of Smallpox. John exchanges his medical services for the release of August and is invited to come work for him in the new hospital he is funding, Knickerbocker Hospital.
John gained his post of Chief of Surgery after the suicide of his mentor Dr. J. M. Christiansen. He is a highly skilled and respected surgeon and has carried out a number of procedures including; grafting the skin from Abigail Alford's arm onto her nose, hernia repair, placenta previa surgery and hypnosis.
Personal Life[]
John is a drug addict who is addicted to cocaine and then later heroin. He frequently visits Ping Wu's opium den where he has sex with numerous prostitutes.
Relationships[]
John starts a romance with Nurse Lucy Elkins and it becomes clear that it means more to her than it does to him. John introduces Lucy to cocaine which the two use before intercourse, and after he is arrested for breaking into a pharmacy to steal cocaine, she risks her job trying to help him. On John's return from a clinic for his addiction, he rejects Lucy, saying the affair was a drug-induced bad choice, and that she should find someone younger. She later begins a relationship with Henry Robertson.
John's former lover Abigail Alford is introduced when she comes to him for help after contracting Syphilis and insists that John be the one to perform her surgery. He later visits her and tell her he understands why she left him, but not for whom she left him for. After curing her of Syphilis, the two become a couple once more and she asks him to fix her nose to make it look better. Though he thinks she looks beautiful, her insistance leads him to agree. Unfortunately, during her surgery Abigail has an unexpected reaction to the anesthetic (ether): unbeknownst to the doctors, she had taken opiate-based Laudanum right before the surgery. The mix Laudanum-ether causes her to accidentally overdose. She dies on the operating table, seconds into the procedure, leaving Thack powerless and deeply distraught.
Real-World Inspiration:[]
Dr. John Thackery's character was likely inspired by and based upon the real life surgeon, Dr. William Stewart Halsted; one of the founding members of Johns Hopkins Hospital and a pioneer of the medical field whose advancements in surgical procedures and medical asepsis are still with us to this very day.