IN: Cronin was born in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, the only child of a Protestant mother, Jessie Cronin (nee Montgomerie), and a Catholic father, Patrick Cronin. Cronin often wrote of young men from similarly mixed backgrounds. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, and become glass and china merchants in Alexandria. Owen Cronin, his grandfather, had had his surname changed from Cronague in 1870.

The Citadel (1937), a tale of a mining company doctor's struggle to balance scientific integrity with social obligations, helped to incite the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom by exposing the inequity and incompetence of medical practice at the time. In the novel Cronin advocated a free public health service in order to defeat the wiles of those doctors who "raised guinea-snatching and the bamboozling of patients to an art form." Dr Cronin and Aneurin Bevan had both worked at the Tredegar Cottage Hospital in Wales, which served as one of the bases for the NHS. The author quickly made enemies in the medical profession, and there was a concerted effort by one group of specialists to get The Citadel banned. Cronin's novel, which was the highest-selling book ever published by Victor Gollancz, informed the public about corruption within the medical system, planting a seed that eventually led to reform. Not only were the author's pioneering ideas instrumental in the creation of the NHS, but the historian Raphael Samuel asserted in 1995 that the popularity of Cronin's novels played a substantial role in the Labour Party's landslide victory in 1945.  By contrast, according to one of Cronin's biographers, Alan Davies, the book's reception was mixed. A few of the more vociferous medical practitioners of the day took exception to one of its many messages: that a few well-heeled doctors in fashionable practices were ripping off their equally well-off patients. Some pointed to the lack of balance between criticism and praise for hard-working doctors. The majority accepted it for what it was, a topical novel. The press attempted to incite passions within the profession in an attempt to sell copy, while Victor Gollancz followed suit in an attempt to promote the book, all overlooking the fact that it was a work of fiction, not a scientific piece of research, and not autobiographical.  In the United States The Citadel won the National Book Award, Favorite Fiction of 1937, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. According to a Gallup poll conducted in 1939, The Citadel was voted the most interesting book readers had ever read.

what is the citadel

OUT: The Citadel (1937), a tale of a mining company doctor's struggle to balance scientific integrity with social obligations,

input: In 1830, Black made the famous Bowie knife for Jim Bowie who was already famous for knife-fighting from his 1827 sandbar duel. Bowie's killing of three assassins in Texas and his death at the Battle of the Alamo made him, and Black's knife, legends. After Bowie's death in 1836, Black did a brisk business selling his knives to pioneers bound for Texas. Everyone seemed to want "Jim Bowie's knife." Black forged his knives behind a leather curtain and kept his process a secret. Black's knives were known to be exceedingly tough yet flexible. Many claimed that Black had rediscovered the process to make Damascus steel.  James Black's wife Anne died in 1838; and in 1839, while Black was in bed from an illness, his father-in-law Shaw broke into Black's house and brutally attacked him with a club. Black's life was saved by the family dog; he survived, but his eyes were severely damaged by the attack. He went north to seek medical advice, where his eyes were further damaged by the inept ministrations of a Cincinnati, Ohio, physician. When Black returned to Arkansas he discovered that his father-in-law had sold his business and property, illegally, and disappeared with the cash.  Black lived on a local plantation for a couple of years until Dr. Isaac Newton Jones took him into his home. Black lived with the Jones family for the next 30 years. He attempted to pass on his knife-making secrets to Daniel Webster Jones, but unfortunately he could not remember the technique. Jones would later become Governor of Arkansas. James Black died on 22 June 1872 in Washington, Arkansas.  More skeptically, "...[T]here is no direct contemporary evidence to establish that James Black made a knife for James Bowie... The story rests solely on Black's claims made well after he had been adjudged mentally incompetent..." "...[T]he only time that [James Bowie] verifiably used a knife in a personal encounter was on the Sandbar in 1827..." "...[T]o this day there is no known knife bearing his name that is proven authentic, nor positively identified as the work of James Black. Neither is it proven beyond doubt that he even made a knife of any type!" Shifting the question (and the burden of proof) from people to knives, "...[T]he Black explanation remains the most logical way to understand this part of the Bowies' history."

Answer this question "Why was he adjudged mentally incompetent?"
output:
More skeptically, "...[T]here is no direct contemporary evidence to establish that James Black made a knife for James Bowie...