Walton here assumes the position of ministrant that Clerval held during Victor's "nervous
fever" in Ingolstadt (I:4:17), pointedly an inversion of customary gender roles. Healers
are accorded a privileged value in this novel, though by no means in the world that
encompasses its fiction. Justine Moritz's attendance on Victor's mother in her final
illness earns for her no particular credence from her judges (I:7:10), and his mother,
contracting scarlet fever from nursing Elizabeth, dies as a result of her good offices
(I:2:2)