"SPEAKING OF OPERATIONS--"

by Irvin S. Cobb

Respectfully dedicated to two classes:

 Those who have already been operated on Those who have not yet been operated on

Now that the last belated bill for services professionally rendered hasbeen properly paid and properly receipted; now that the memory of theevent, like the mark of the stitches, has faded out from a vivid red toa becoming pink shade; now that I pass a display of adhesive tape ina drug-store window without flinching--I sit me down to write a littlepiece about a certain matter--a small thing, but mine own--to wit, ThatOperation. 

For years I have noticed that persons who underwent pruning orremodeling at the hands of a duly qualified surgeon, and survived, liketo talk about it afterward. In the event of their not surviving I haveno doubt they still liked to talk about it, but in a different locality. Of all the readily available topics for use, whether among friendsor among strangers, an operation seems to be the handiest and mostdependable. It beats the Tariff, or Roosevelt, or Bryan, or when thiswar is going to end, if ever, if you are a man talking to other men;and it is more exciting even than the question of how Mrs. Vernon Castlewill wear her hair this season, if you are a woman talking to otherwomen. 

For mixed companies a whale is one of the best and the easiest things totalk about that I know of. In regard to whales and their peculiaritiesyou can make almost any assertion without fear of successfulcontradiction. Nobody ever knows any more about them than you do. Youare not hampered by facts. If someone mentions the blubber of the whaleand you chime in and say it may be noticed for miles on a still day whenthe large but emotional creature has been moved to tears by some greatsorrow coming into its life, everybody is bound to accept the statement. For after all how few among us really know whether a distressed whalesobs aloud or does so under its breath? Who, with any certainty, cantell whether a mother whale hatches her own egg her own self or leavesit on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be incubated by the gentlewarmth of the midnight sun? The possibilities of the proposition forpurposes of informal debate, pro and con, are apparent at a glance. 

The weather, of course, helps out amazingly when you are meeting peoplefor the first time, because there is nearly always more or less weathergoing on somewhere and practically everybody has ideas about it. Thehuman breakfast is also a wonderfully good topic to start up during oneof those lulls. Try it yourself the next time the conversation seemsto drag. Just speak up in an offhand kind of way and say that you nevercare much about breakfast--a slice of toast and a cup of weak tea startyou off properly for doing a hard day's work. You will be surprised tonote how things liven up and how eagerly all present join in. The ladyon your left feels that you should know she always takes two lumps ofsugar and nearly half cream, because she simply cannot abide hot milk, no matter what the doctors say. The gentleman on your right will bemoved to confess he likes his eggs boiled for exactly three minutes, no more and no less. Buckwheat cakes and sausage find a champion andoatmeal rarely lacks a warm defender. 

But after all, when all is said and done, the king of all topics isoperations. Sooner or later, wherever two or more are gathered togetherit is reasonably certain that somebody will bring up an operation. 

Until I passed through the experience of being operated on myself, Inever really realized what a precious conversational boon the subjectis, and how great a part it plays in our intercourse with our fellowbeings on this planet. To the teller it is enormously interesting, forhe is not only the hero of the tale but the rest of the cast and thestage setting as well--the whole show, as they say; and if the listenerhas had a similar experience--and who is there among us in these daysthat has not taken a nap 'neath the shade of the old ether cone?--itacquires a doubled value. 

"Speaking of operations--" you say, just like that, even thoughnobody present has spoken of them; and then you are off, with your newacquaintance sitting on the edge of his chair, or hers as the casemay be and so frequently is, with hands clutched in polite but painfulrestraint, gills working up and down with impatience, eyes brightenedwith desire, tongue hung in the middle, waiting for you to pause tocatch your breath, so that he or she may break in with a few personalrecollections along the same line. From a mere conversation it resolvesitself into a symptom symposium, and a perfectly splendid time is had byall. 

If an operation is such a good thing to talk about, why isn't it a goodthing to write about, too? That is what I wish to know. Besides, I needthe money. Verily, one always needs the money when one has but recentlyescaped from the ministering clutches of the modern hospital. ThereforeI write. 

It all dates back to the fair, bright morning when I went to call ona prominent practitioner here in New York, whom I shall denominate asDoctor X. I had a pain. I had had it for days. It was not a dependable, locatable pain, such as a tummyache or a toothache is, which you canput your hand on; but an indefinite, unsettled, undecided kind of pain, which went wandering about from place to place inside of me like astrange ghost lost in Cudjo's Cave. I never knew until then what thepersonal sensations of a haunted house are. If only the measly thingcould have made up its mind to settle down somewhere and start lighthousekeeping I think should have been better satisfied. I never had suchan uneasy tenant. Alongside of it a woman with the moving fever would becomparatively a fixed and stationary object. 

Having always, therefore, enjoyed perfectly riotous and absolutelyunbridled health, never feeling weak and distressed unless dinnerhappened to be ten or fifteen minutes late, I was green regardingphysicians and the ways of physicians. But I knew Doctor X slightly, having met him last summer in one of his hours of ease in the grandstand at a ball game, when he was expressing a desire to cut theumpire's throat from ear to ear, free of charge; and I remembered hisname, and remembered, too, that he had impressed me at the time as beinga person of character and decision and scholarly attainments. 

He wore whiskers. Somehow in my mind whiskers are ever associatedwith medical skill. I presume this is a heritage of my youth, though Ibelieve others labor under the same impression. 

As I look back it seems to me that in childhood's days all the doctorsin our town wore whiskers. 

I recall one old doctor down there in Kentucky who was practicallylurking in ambush all the time. All he needed was a few decoys out infront of him and a pump gun to be a duck blind. He carried his calomelabout with him in a fruit jar, and when there was cutting job hestropped his scalpel on his bootleg. 

You see, in those primitive times germs had not been invented yet, andso he did not have to take any steps to avoid them. Now we know thatloose, luxuriant whiskers are unsanitary, because they make such finewinter quarters for germs; so, though the doctors still wear whiskers, they do not wear them wild and waving. In the profession bosky whiskersare taboo; they must be landscaped. And since it is a recognized factthat germs abhor orderliness and straight lines they now go elsewhere toreside, and the doctor may still retain his traditional aspect and yetbe practically germproof. Doctor X was trimmed in accordance with theethics of the newer school. He had trellis whiskers. So I went to seehim at his offices in a fashionable district, on an expensive sidestreet. 

Before reaching him I passed through the hands of a maid and a nurse, each of whom spoke to me in a low, sorrowful tone of voice, which seemedto indicate that there was very little hope. 

I reached an inner room where Doctor X was. He looked me over, while Idescribed for him as best I could what seemed to be the matter withme, and asked me a number of intimate questions touching on the lives, works, characters and peculiarities of my ancestors; after which hemade me stand up in front of him and take my coat off, and he punchedme hither and yon with his forefinger. He also knocked repeatedly on mybreastbone with his knuckles, and each time, on doing this, would applyhis ear to my chest and listen intently for a spell, afterward shakinghis head in a disappointed way. Apparently there was nobody at home. Forquite a time he kept on knocking, but without getting any response. 

He then took my temperature and fifteen dollars, and said it was aninteresting case--not unusual exactly, but interesting--and that itcalled for an operation. 

From the way my heart and other organs jumped inside of me at thatstatement I knew at once that, no matter what he may have thought, thepremises were not unoccupied. Naturally I inquired how soon he meantto operate. Personally I trusted there was no hurry about it. I wasperfectly willing to wait for several years, if necessary. He smiled atmy ignorance. 

"I never operate, " he said; "operating is entirely out of my line. I ama diagnostician. "

He was, too--I give him full credit for that. He was a good, keen, closediagnostician. How did he know I had only fifteen dollars on me? Youdid not have to tell this man what you had, or how much. He knew withoutbeing told. 

I asked whether he was acquainted with Doctor Y--Y being a person whom Ihad met casually at a club to which I belong. Oh, yes, he said, heknew Doctor Y. Y was a clever man, X said--very, very clever; but Yspecialized in the eyes, the ears, the nose and the throat. I gatheredfrom what Doctor X said that any time Doctor Y ventured below the thoraxhe was out of bounds and liable to be penalized; and that if by anychance he strayed down as far as the lungs he would call for help andback out as rapidly as possible. 

This was news to me. It would appear that these up-to-date practitionersjust go ahead and divide you up and partition you out among themselveswithout saying anything to you about it. Your torso belongs to one manand your legs are the exclusive property of his brother practitionerdown on the next block, and so on. You may belong to as many as half adozen specialists, most of whom, very possibly, are total strangers toyou, and yet never know a thing about it yourself. 

It has rather the air of trespass--nay, more than that, it bears someof the aspects of unlawful entry--but I suppose it is legal. Certainly, judging by what I am able to learn, the system is being carried ongenerally. So it must be ethical. Anything doctors do in a mass isethical. Almost anything they do singly and on individual responsibilityis unethical. Being ethical among doctors is practically the same thingas being a Democrat in Texas or a Presbyterian in Scotland. 

"Y will never do for you, " said Doctor X, when I had rallied somewhatfrom the shock of these disclosures. "I would suggest that you go toDoctor Z, at such-and-such an address. You are exactly in Z's line. I'lllet him know that you are coming and when, and I'll send him down mydiagnosis. "

So that same afternoon, the appointment having been made by telephone, I went, full of quavery emotions, to Doctor Z's place. As soon as I wasinside his outer hallway, I realized that I was nearing the presence ofone highly distinguished in his profession. 

A pussy-footed male attendant, in a livery that made him look like across between a headwaiter and an undertaker's assistant, escorted methrough an anteroom into a reception-room, where a considerable numberof well-dressed men and women were sitting about in strained attitudes, pretending to read magazines while they waited their turns, but inreality furtively watching one another. 

I sat down in a convenient chair, adhering fast to my hat and myumbrella. They were the only friends I had there and I was determinednot to lose them without a struggle. On the wall were many coloredcharts showing various portions of the human anatomy and what ailedthem. Directly in front of me was a very thrilling illustration, evidently copied from an oil painting, of a liver in a bad state ofrepair. I said to myself that if I had a liver like that one I shouldkeep it hidden from the public eye--I would never permit it to sit forit's portrait. Still, there is no accounting for tastes. I know a manwho got his spleen back from the doctors and now keeps it in a bottleof alcohol on the what-not in the parlor, as one of his most treasuredpossessions, and sometimes shows it to visitors. He, however, is of avery saving disposition. 

Presently a lady secretary, who sat behind a roll-top desk in a cornerof the room, lifted a forefinger and silently beckoned me to her side. Imoved over and sat down by her; she took down my name and my age and myweight and my height, and a number of other interesting facts thatwill come in very handy should anyone ever be moved to write a completehistory of my early life. In common with Doctor X she sharedone attribute--she manifested a deep curiosity regarding myforefathers--wanted to know all about them. I felt that this wascarrying the thing too far. I felt like saying to her:

"Miss or madam, so far as I know there is nothing the matter with myancestors of the second and third generations back, except that theyare dead. I am not here to seek medical assistance for a grandparent whosuccumbed to disappointment that time when Samuel J. Tilden got countedout, or for a great-grandparent who entered into Eternal Rest veryunexpectedly and in a manner entirely uncalled for as a result of beingan innocent bystander in one of those feuds that were so popular in mynative state immediately following the Mexican War. Leave my ancestorsalone. There is no need of your shaking my family tree in the beliefthat a few overripe patients will fall out. I alone--I, me, myself--amthe present candidate!"

However, I refrained from making this protest audibly. I judged she wasonly going according to the ritual; and as she had a printed card, withblanks in it ready to be filled out with details regarding the remotemembers of the family connection, I humored her along. 

When I could not remember something she wished to know concerning anancestor I supplied her with thrilling details culled from the field offancy. When the card was entirely filled up she sent me back to my oldplace to wait. I waited and waited, breeding fresh ailments all thetime. I had started out with one symptom; now if I had one I had amillion and a half. I could feel goose flesh sprouting out all over me. If I had been taller I might have had more, but not otherwise. Such isthe power of the human imagination when the surroundings are favorableto its development. 

Time passed; to me it appeared that nearly all the time there was passedand that we were getting along toward the shank-end of the Christian eramighty fast. I was afraid my turn would come next and afraid it wouldnot. Perhaps you know this sensation. You get it at the dentist's, andwhen you are on the list of after-dinner speakers at a large banquet, and when you are waiting for the father of the Only Girl in the Worldto make up his mind whether he is willing to try to endure you as ason-in-law. 

Then some more time passed. 

One by one my companions, obeying a command, passed out through the doorat the back, vanishing out of my life forever. None of them returned. Iwas vaguely wondering whether Doctor Z buried his dead on the premisesor had them removed by a secret passageway in the rear, when a youngwoman in a nurse's costume tapped me on the shoulder from behind. 

I jumped. She hid a compassionate smile with her hand and told me thatthe doctor would see me now. 

As I rose to follow her--still clinging with the drowning man's gripof desperation to my hat and my umbrella--I was astonished to note by aglance at the calendar on the wall that this was still the present date. I thought it would be Thursday of next week at the very least. 

Doctor Z also wore whiskers, carefully pointed up by an expert hedgetrimmer. He sat at his desk, surrounded by freewill offerings fromgrateful patients and by glass cases containing other things he hadtaken away from them when they were not in a condition to object. Ihad expected, after all the preliminary ceremonies and delays, thatwe should have a long skance together. Not so; not at all. The modernexpert in surgery charges as much for remembering your name betweenvisits as the family doctor used to expect for staying up all night withyou, but he does not waste any time when you are in his presence. 

I was about to find that out. And a little later on I was to find out alot of other things; in fact, that whole week was of immense educationalvalue to me. 

I presume it was because he stood high in his profession, and was almostconstantly engaged in going into the best society that Doctor Z did notappear to be the least bit excited over my having picked him out tolook into me. In the most perfunctory manner he shook the hand that hasshaken the hands of Jess Willard, George M. Cohan and Henry Ford, andbade me be seated in a chair which was drawn up in a strong light, wherehe might gaze directly at me as we conversed and so get the full valuesof the composition. But if I was a treat for him to look at he concealedhis feelings very effectually. 

He certainly had his emotions under splendid control. But then, of course, you must remember that he probably had traveled aboutextensively and was used to sight-seeing. 

From this point on everything passed off in a most businesslike manner. He reached into a filing cabinet and took out an exhibit, which Irecognized as the same one his secretary had filled out in the earlypart of the century. So I was already in the card-index class. Thenbriefly he looked over the manifest that Doctor X had sent him. Itmay not have been a manifest--it may have been an invoice or a bill oflading. Anyhow I was in the assignee's hands. I could only hope it wouldnot eventually become necessary to call in a receiver. Then he spoke:

"Yes, yes-yes, " he said; "yes-yes-yes! Operation required. Smallmatter--hum, hum! Let's see--this is Tuesday? Quite so. Do it Friday!Friday at"--he glanced toward a scribbled pad of engagement dates at hiselbow--"Friday at seven A. M. No, make it seven-fifteen. Have importanttumor case at seven. St. Germicide's Hospital. You know the place--up onUmpty-umph Street. Go' day! Miss Whoziz, call next visitor. "

And before I realized that practically the whole affair had been settledI was outside the consultation-room in a small private hall, and thesecretary was telling me further details would be conveyed to me bymail. I went home in a dazed state. For the first time I was beginningto learn something about an industry in which heretofore I had neverbeen interested. Especially was I struck by the difference now revealedto me in the preliminary stages of the surgeons' business as comparedwith their fellow experts in the allied cutting trades--tailors, forinstance, not to mention barbers. Every barber, you know, used to be asurgeon, only he spelled it chirurgeon. Since then the two professionshave drifted far apart. Even a half-witted barber--the kind who alwayshas the first chair as you come into the shop--can easily spend tenminutes of your time thinking of things he thinks you should have andmentioning them to you one by one, whereas any good, live surgeon knowswhat you have almost instantly. 

As for the tailor--consider how wearisome are his methods when youparallel them alongside the tremendous advances in this direction madeby the surgeon--how cumbersome and old-fashioned and tedious! Why, anexperienced surgeon has you all apart in half the time the tailor takesup in deciding whether the vest shall fasten with five buttons or six. Our own domestic tailors are bad enough in this regard and the Old Worldtailors are even worse. 

I remember a German tailor in Aix-la-Chapelle in the fall of 1914 whoundertook to build for me a suit suitable for visiting the battle linesinformally. He was the most literary tailor I ever met anywhere. Hewould drape the material over my person and then take a piece of chalkand write quite a nice long piece on me. Then he would rub it out andwrite it all over again, but more fully. He kept this up at intervals ofevery other day until he had writer's cramp. After that he used pins. Hewould pin the seams together, uttering little soothing, clucking soundsin German whenever a pin went through the goods and into me. The Germancluck is not so soothing as the cluck of the English-speaking peoples, Ifind. 

At the end of two long and trying weeks, which wore both of us downnoticeably, he had the job done. It was not an unqualified success. Heregarded is as a suit of clothes, but I knew better; it was a set ofslip covers, and if only I had been a two-seated runabout it would haveproved a perfect fit, I am sure; but I am a single-seated design and itdid not answer. I wore it to the war because I had nothing else to wearthat would stamp me as a regular war correspondent, except, of course, my wrist watch; but I shall not wear it to another war. War is terribleenough already; and, besides, I have parted with it. On my way homethrough Holland I gave that suit to a couple of poor Belgian refugees, and I presume they are still wearing it. 

So far as I have been able to observe, the surgeons and the tailors ofthese times share but one common instinct: If you go to a new surgeon orto a new tailor he is morally certain, after looking you over, thatthe last surgeon you had or the last tailor, did not do your cuttingproperly. There, however, is where the resemblance ends. The tailor, asI remarked in effect just now, wants an hour at least in which to decidehow he may best cover up and disguise the irregularities of the humanform; in much less time than that the surgeon has completely altered theform itself. 

With the surgeon it is very much as it is with those learned menwho write those large, impressive works of reference which should bepermanently in every library, and which we are forever buying from anagent because we are so passionately addicted to payments. If the thinghe seeks does not appear in the contents proper he knows exactly whereto look for it. "See appendix, " says the historian to you in a footnote. "See appendix, " says the surgeon to himself, the while humming a cheeryrefrain. And so he does. 

Well, I went home. This was Tuesday and the operation was not to beperformed until the coming Friday. By Wednesday I had calmed downconsiderably. By Thursday morning I was practically normal again asregards my nerves. You will understand that I was still in a blissfulstate of ignorance concerning the actual methods of the surgicalprofession as exemplified by its leading exponents of today. Theknowledge I have touched on in the pages immediately preceding was tocome to me later. 

Likewise Doctor Z's manner had been deceiving. It could not be that hemeant to carve me to any really noticeable extent--his attitude had beenentirely too casual. At our house carving is a very serious matter. Anytime I take the head of the table and start in to carve it is fittingwomen and children get to a place of safety, and onlookers should getunder the table. When we first began housekeeping and gave our firstsmall dinner-party we had a brace of ducks cooked in honor of thecompany, and I, as host, undertook to carve them. I never knew untilthen that a duck was built like a watch--that his works were inclosed ina burglarproof case. Without the use of dynamite the Red Leary-O'Briengang could not have broken into those ducks. I thought so then and Ithink so yet. Years have passed since then, but I may state that evennow, when there are guests for dinner, we do not have ducks. Unlesssomebody else is going to carve, we have liver. 

I mention this fact in passing because it shows that I had learned torevere carving as one of the higher arts, and one not to be approachedexcept in a spirit of due appreciation of the magnitude of theundertaking, and after proper consideration and thought and reflection, and all that sort of thing. 

If this were true as regards a mere duck, why not all the more so asregards the carving of a person of whom I am so very fond as I am ofmyself? Thus I reasoned. And finally, had not Doctor Z spoken of thecoming operation as a small matter? Well then?

Thursday at noon I received from Doctor Z's secretary a note statingthat arrangements had been made for my admission into St. Germicide thatsame evening and that I was to spend the night there. This hardly seemednecessary. Still, the tone of the note appeared to indicate that thehospital authorities particularly wished to have me for an overnightguest; and as I reflected that probably the poor things had few enoughbright spots in their busy lives, I decided I would humor them along andgladden the occasion with my presence from dinner-time on. 

About eight o'clock I strolled in very jauntily. In my mind I had thewhole programme mapped out. I would stay at the hospital for, say, twodays following the operation--or, at most, three. Then I must be up andaway. I had a good deal of work to do and a number of people to see onimportant business, and I could not really afford to waste more than aweekend on the staff of St. Germicide's. After Monday they must look totheir own devices for social entertainment. That was my idea. Now whenI look back on it I laugh, but it is a hollow laugh and there is no realmerriment in it. 

Indeed, almost from the moment of my entrance little things beganto come up that were calculated to have a depressing effect on one'sspirits. Downstairs a serious-looking lady met me and entered in a booka number of salient facts regarding my personality which the previousinvestigators had somehow overlooked. There is a lot of bookkeepingabout an operation. This detail attended to, a young man, dressed inwhite garments and wearing an expression that stamped him as one who hadsuffered a recent deep bereavement came and relieved me of my hand bagand escorted me upstairs. 

As we passed through the upper corridors I had my first introductionto the hospital smell, which is a smell compounded of iodoform, ether, gruel, and something boiling. All hospitals have it, I understand. Intime you get used to it, but you never really care for it. 

The young man led me into a small room tastefully decorated with fourwalls, a floor, a ceiling, a window sill and a window, a door and adoorsill, and a bed and a chair. He told me to go to bed. I did not wantto go to bed--it was not my regular bedtime--but he made a point of it, and I judged it was according to regulations; so I undressed and put onmy night clothes and crawled in. He left me, taking my other clothes andmy shoes with him, but I was not allowed to get lonely. 

A little later a ward surgeon appeared, to put a few inquiries of apointed and personal nature. He particularly desired to know what mytrouble was. I explained to him that I couldn't tell him--he would haveto see Doctor X or Doctor Z; they probably knew, but were keeping it asecret between themselves. 

The answer apparently satisfied him, because immediately after that hemade me sign a paper in which I assumed all responsibility for what wasto take place the next morning. 

This did not seem exactly fair. As I pointed out to him, it was thesurgeon's affair, not mine; and if the surgeon made a mistake the jokewould be on him and not on me, because in that case I would not be hereanyhow. But I signed, as requested, on the dotted line, and he departed. 

After that, at intervals, the chief house surgeon dropped in, withoutknocking, and the head nurse came, and an interne or so, and a wardnurse, and the special nurse who was to have direct charge of me. Itdawned on me that I was not having any more privacy in that hospitalthan a goldfish. 

About eleven o'clock an orderly came, and, without consulting my wishesin the matter, he undressed me until I could have passed almost anywherefor September Morn's father, and gave me a clean shave, twice over, onone of my most prominent plane surfaces. I must confess I enjoyed thatpart of it. So far as I am able to recall, it was the only shave Ihave ever had where the operator did not spray me with cheap perfumeryafterward and then try to sell me a bottle of hair tonic. 

Having shaved me, the young man did me up amidships in a neat clothparcel, took his kit under his arm and went away. 

It occurred to me that, considering the trivial nature of the case, agood deal of fuss was being made over me by persons who could have nopersonal concern in the matter whatsoever. This thought recurred to mefrequently as I lay there all tied in a bundle like a week's washing. Idid not feel quite so uppish as I had felt. Why was everybody picking onme?

Anon I slept, but dreamed fitfully. I dreamed that a whole flock ofsurgeons came to my bedside and charted me out in sections, like oneof those diagram pictures you see of a beef in the Handy Compendium ofUniversal Knowledge, showing the various cuts and the butcher's pet namefor each cut. Each man took his favorite joint and carried it away, and when they were all gone I was merely a recent site, full ofreverberating echoes and nothing else. 

I have had happier dreams in my time; this was not the kind of dream Ishould have selected had the choice been left to me. 

When I woke the young sun was shining in at the window, and anorderly--not the orderly who had shaved me, but another one--was therein my room and my nurse was waiting outside the door. The orderlydressed me in a quaint suit of pyjamas cut on the half shell andbuttoning stylishly in the back, princesse mode. Then he rolled in aflat litter on wheels and stretched me on it, and covered me up with awhite tablecloth, just as though I had been cold Sunday-night supper, and we started for the operating-room at the top of the building; butbefore we started I lit a large black cigar, as Gen. U. S. Grant used todo when he went into battle. I wished by this to show how indifferent Iwas. Maybe he fooled somebody, but I do not believe I possess the samepowers of simulation that Grant had. He must have been a very remarkableman--Grant must. 

The orderly and the nurse trundled me out into the hall and loaded meinto an elevator, which was to carry us up to the top of the hospital. Several other nurses were already in the elevator. As we came aboard oneof them remarked that it was a fine day. A fine day for what? She didnot finish the sentence. 

Everybody wore a serious look. Inside of myself I felt pretty serioustoo--serious enough for ten or twelve. I had meant to fling off severalvery bright, spontaneous quips on the way to the table. I thought themout in advance, but now, somehow, none of them seemed appropriate. Instinctively, as it were, I felt that humor was out of place here. 

I never knew an elevator to progress from the third floor of a buildingto the ninth with such celerity as this one on which we were travelingprogressed. Personally I was in no mood for haste. If there was anyoneelse in all that great hospital who was in a particular hurry to beoperated on I was perfectly willing to wait. But alas, no! The mechanismof the elevator was in perfect order--entirely too perfect. No accidentof any character whatsoever befell us en route, no dropping back intothe basement with a low, grateful thud; no hitch; no delay of any kind. We were certainly out of luck that trip. The demon of a joyrider whooperated the accursed device jerked a lever and up we soared at adistressingly high rate of speed. If I could have had my way about thatyouth he would have been arrested for speeding. 

Now we were there! They rolled into a large room, all white, with arounded ceiling like the inside of an egg. Right away I knew what thefeelings of a poor, lonely little yolk are when the spoon begins to chipthe shell. If I had not been so busy feeling sorry for myself I think Imight have developed quite an active sympathy for yolks. 

My impression had been that this was to be in the nature of a privateaffair, without invitations. I was astonished to note that quite a crowdhad assembled for the opening exercises. From his attire and generaldeportment I judged that Doctor Z was going to be the master of therevels, he being attired appropriately in a white domino, with rubbergloves and a fancy cap of crash toweling. There were present, also, my diagnostic friend, Doctor X, likewise in fancy-dress costume, and asurgeon I had never met. From what I could gather he was going over thecourse behind Doctor Z to replace the divots. 

And there was an interne in the background, playing caddy, as it were, and a head nurse, who was going to keep the score, and two other nurses, who were going to help her keep it. I only hoped that they would show nopartiality, but be as fair to me as they were to Doctor Z, and that hewould go round in par. 

So they placed me right where my eyes might rest on a large wall cabinetfull of very shiny-looking tools; and they took my cigar away from meand folded my hands on the wide bowknot of my sash. Then they put acloth dingus over my face and a voice of authority told me to breathe. That advice, however, was superfluous and might just as well havebeen omitted, for such was my purpose anyhow. Ever since I can recallanything at all, breathing has been a regular habit with me. So Ibreathed. And, at that, a bottle of highly charged sarsaparilla explodedsomewhere in the immediate vicinity and most of its contents went up mynose. 

I started to tell them that somebody had been fooling with their etherand adulterating it, and that if they thought they could send me off tosleep with soda pop they were making the mistake of their lives, becauseit just naturally could not be done; but for some reason or otherI decided to put off speaking about the matter for a few minutes. Ibreathed again--again--agai----

I was going away from there. I was in a large gas balloon, soaring upinto the clouds. How pleasant!. .. No, by Jove! I was not in a balloon--Imyself was the balloon, which was not quite so pleasant. Besides, DoctorZ was going along as a passenger; and as we traveled up and up he keptjabbing me in the midriff with the ferrule of a large umbrella whichhe had brought along with him in case of rain. He jabbed me harder andharder. I remonstrated with him. I told him I was a bit tender in thatlocality and the ferrule of his umbrella was sharp. He would not listen. He kept on jabbing me. 

Something broke! We started back down to earth. We fell faster andfaster. We fell nine miles, and after that I began to get used to it. Then I saw the earth beneath and it was rising up to meet us. 

A town was below--a town that grew larger and larger as we neared it. I could make out the bonded indebtedness, and the Carnegie Library, and the moving-picture palaces, and the new dancing parlor, and otherprincipal points of interest. 

At the rate we were falling we were certainly going to make an awfulsplatter in that town when we hit. I was sorry for the street-cleaningdepartment. 

We fell another half mile or so. A spire was sticking up into the skydirectly beneath us, like a spear, to impale us. By a supreme effort Itwisted out of the way of that spire, only to strike squarely on top ofthe roof of a greenhouse back of the parsonage, next door. We crashedthrough it with a perfectly terrific clatter of breaking glass andlanded in a bed of white flowers, all soft and downy, like feathers. 

And then Doctor Z stood up and combed the debris out of his whiskersand remarked that, taking it by and large, it had been one of thepleasantest little outings he had enjoyed in the entire course of hispractice. He said that as a patient I was fair, but as a balloon I wasimmense. He asked me whether I had seen anything of his umbrella andbegan looking round for it. I tried to help him look, but I was tootired to exert myself much. I told him I believed I would take a littlenap. 

I opened a dizzy eye part way. So this was heaven--this white expansethat swung and swam before my languid gaze? No, it could not be--it didnot smell like heaven. It smelled like a hospital. It was a hospital. Itwas my hospital. My nurse was bending over me and I caught a faint whiffof the starch in the front of her crisp blue blouse. She was two-headedfor the moment, but that was a mere detail. She settled a pillow undermy head and told me to lie quiet. 

I meant to lie quiet; I did not have to be told. I wanted to lie quietand hurt. I was hurty from head to toe and back again, and crosswise andcater-cornered. I hurt diagonally and lengthwise and on the bias. I hada taste in my mouth like a bird-and-animal store. And empty! It seemedto me those doctors had not left anything inside of me except theacoustics. Well, there was a mite of consolation there. If theoverhauling had been as thorough as I had reason to believe it was frommy present sensations, I need never fear catching anything again so longas I lived, except possibly dandruff. 

I waved the nurse away. I craved solitude. I desired only to lie therein that bed and hurt--which I did. 

I had said beforehand I meant to stay in St. Germicide's for two orthree days only. It is when I look back on that resolution I emit thehollow laugh elsewhere referred to. For exactly four weeks I was flaton my back. I know now how excessively wearied a man can get of his ownback, how tired of it, how bored with it! And after that another twoweeks elapsed before my legs became the same dependable pair of legs Ihad known in the past. 

I did not want to eat at first, and when I did begin to want to theywould not let me. If I felt sort of peckish they let me suck alittle glass thermometer, but there is not much nourishment really inthermometers. And for entertainment, to wile the dragging hours away, I could count the cracks in the ceiling and read my temperature chart, which was a good deal like Red Ames' batting average for the pastseason--ranging from ninety-nine to one hundred and four. 

Also, through daily conversations with my nurse and with the surgeonswho dropped in from time to time to have a look at me, I learned, as Ilay there, a great deal about the medical profession--that is, agreat deal for a layman--and what I learned filled me with an abidingadmiration for it, both as a science and as a business. This surely isone profession which ever keeps its face to the front. Burying its pastmistakes and forgetting them as speedily as possible, it pushes straightforward into fresh fields and fresh patients, always hopeful of whatthe future may bring in the way of newly discovered and highly expensiveailments. As we look backward upon the centuries we are astonishedby its advancement. I did a good deal of looking backwards upon thecenturies during my sojourn at St. Germicide's. 

Take the Middle Ages now--the period when a barber and a surgeon wereone and the same. If a man made a failure as a barber he turned histalents to surgery. Surgeons in those times were a husky breed. I judgethey worked by the day instead of by piecework; anyhow the records showthey were very fond of experiments where somebody else furnished the rawmaterial. 

When there came a resounding knock at the tradesman's entrance of themoated grange, the lord of the manor, looking over the portcullis andseeing a lusty wight standing down below, in a leather apron, with hissleeves rolled up and a kit of soldering tools under his arm, didn'tknow until he made inquiry whether the gentle stranger had come to mendthe drain or remove the cook's leg. 

A little later along, when gunpowder had come into general use as ahumanizing factor of civilization, surgeons treated a gunshot wound bypouring boiling lard into it, which I would say was calculated to takethe victim's mind off his wound and give him something else to thinkabout--for the time being, anyhow. I assume the notion of applying amustard plaster outside one's stomach when one has a pain inside one'sstomach is based on the same principle. 

However, one doesn't have to go clear back to medieval times to note theradical differences in the plan of treating human ailments. A greatmany persons who are still living can remember when the doctors werenot nearly so numerous as they are now. I, for one, would be the last toreverse the sentence and say that because the doctors were not nearlyso numerous then as they are now, those persons are still living sonumerously. 

In the spring of the year, when the sap flowed and the birds mated, thesturdy farmer felt that he was due to have something the matter withhim, too. So he would ride into the country-seat and get an almanac. Doubtless the reader, if country raised, has seen copies of this popularwork. On the outside cover, which was dark blue in color, there wasa picture of a person whose stomach was sliced four ways, like atwenty-cent pie, and then folded back neatly, thus exposing his entireinterior arrangements to the gaze of the casual observer. However, thisparty, judging by his picture, did not appear to be suffering. He didnot even seem to fear that he might catch cold from standing there inhis own draught. He was gazing off into space in an absent-minded kindof way, apparently not aware that anything was wrong with him; and onall sides he was surrounded by interesting exhibits, such as a crab, anda scorpion, and a goat, and a chap with a bow and arrow--and one thingand another. 

Such was the main design of the cover, while the contents were made upof recognized and standard varieties in the line of jokes and the lineof diseases which alternated, with first a favorite joke and then afavorite disease. The author who wrote the descriptions of the diseaseswas one of the most convincing writers that ever lived anywhere. As arealist he had no superiors among those using our language as a vehiclefor the expression of thought. He was a wonder. If a person wasn'tparticular about what ailed him he could read any page at random andhave one specific disease. Or he could read the whole book through andhave them all, in their most advanced stages. Then the only thing thatcould save him was a large dollar bottle. 

Again, in attacks of the breakbone ague or malaria it was customaryto call in a local practitioner, generally an elderly lady of theneighborhood who had none of these latter-day prejudices regarding theuse of tobacco by the gentler sex. One whom I distantly recall, amongchildhood's happy memories, carried this liberal-mindedness to a pointwhere she not only dipped snuff and smoked a cob pipe, but sometimeschewed a little natural leaf. This lady, on being called in, would brewup a large caldron of medicinal roots and barks and sprouts and things;and then she would deluge the interior of the sufferer with a largegourdful of this pleasing mixture at regular intervals. It wasefficacious, too. The inundated person either got well or else hedrowned from the inside. Rocking the patient was almost as dangerous apastime as rocking the boat. This also helps to explain, I think, why somany of our forebears had floating kidneys. There was nothing else for akidney to do. 

By the time I attained to long trousers, people in our town mainly hadoutgrown the unlicensed expert and were depending more and more upon theold-fashioned family doctor--the one with the whisker-jungle--who droveabout in a gig, accompanied by a haunting aroma of iodoform and carryinghis calomel with him in bulk. 

He probably owned a secret calomel mine of his own. He must have;otherwise he could never have afforded to be so generous with it. Healso had other medicines with him, all of them being selected on theprinciple that unless a drug tasted like the very dickens it couldn'tpossibly do you any good. At all hours of the day and night he was tobe seen going to and fro, distributing nuggets from his private lode. Hewent to bed with his trousers and his hat on, I think, and there was ageneral belief that his old mare slept between the shafts of the gig, with the bridle shoved up on her forehead. 

It has been only a few years since the oldtime general practitioner waseverywhere. Just look round and see now how the system has changed! Ifyour liver begins to misconduct itself the first thought of the modernoperator is to cut it out and hide it some place where you can't findit. The oldtimer would have bombarded it with a large brunette pillabout the size and color of a damson plum. Or he might put you on adiet of molasses seasoned to taste with blue mass and quinine and otherattractive condiments. Likewise, in the spring of the year he frequentlyanointed the young of the species with a mixture of mutton suet andasafetida. This treatment had an effect that was distinctly depressingupon the growing boy. It militated against his popularity. It forced himto seek his pleasures outdoors, and a good distance outdoors at that. 

It was very hard for a boy, however naturally attractive he might be, to retain his popularity at the fireside circle when coated withmutton suet and asafetida and then taken into a warm room. He attractedattention which he did not court and which was distasteful to him. Keeping quiet did not seem to help him any. Even if they had beenblindfolded others would still have felt his presence. A civit-catsuffers from the same drawbacks in a social way, but the advantage tothe civit-cat is that as a general thing it associates only with othercivit-cats. 

Except in the country the old-time, catch-as-catch-can generalpractitioner appears to be dying out. In the city one finds himoccasionally, playing a limit game in an office on a back street--twodollars to come in, five to call; but the tendency of the day is towardspecialists. Hence the expert who treats you for just one particularthing With a pain in your chest, say, you go to a chest specialist. Solong as he can keep the trouble confined to your chest, all well andgood. If it slips down or slides up he tries to coax it back to thereservation. If it refuses to do so, he bids it an affectionate adieu, makes a dotted mark on you to show where he left off, collects hisbill and regretfully turns you over to a stomach specialist or a throatspecialist, depending on the direction in which the trouble was headedwhen last seen. 

Or, perhaps the specialist to whom you take your custom is an advocateof an immediate operation for such cases as yours and all others. Imay be unduly sensitive on account of having recently emerged from thesurgeon's hands, but it strikes me now that there are an awful lot ofdoctors who take one brief glance at a person who is complaining, andsay to themselves that here is something that ought to be looked intoright away--and immediately open a bag and start picking out the properutensils. You go into a doctor's office and tell him you do not feelthe best in the world--and he gives you a look and excuses himself, andsteps into the next room and begins greasing a saw. 

Mind you, in these casual observations as compiled by me while bedfastand here given utterance, I am not seeking to disparage possibly thenoblest of professions. Lately I have owed much to it. I am strictly onthe doctor's side. He is with us when we come into the world and withus when we go out of it, oftentimes lending a helping hand on bothoccasions. Anyway, our sympathies should especially go out to themedical profession at this particular time when the anti-vivisectionistsare railing so loudly against the doctors. The anti-vivisection crusadehas enlisted widely different classes in the community, including manylovers of our dumb-animal pets--and aren't some of them the dumbestthings you ever saw!--especially chow dogs and love birds. 

I will admit there is something to be said on both sides of theargument. This dissecting of live subjects may have been carried toextremes on occasions. When I read in the medical journals thatthe eminent Doctor Somebody succeeded in transferring the interiordepartment of a pelican to a pointer pup, and vice versa with suchsuccess that the pup drowned while diving for minnows, and the pelicanwent out in the back yard and barked himself to death baying at themoon, I am interested naturally; but, possibly because of my ignorance, I fail to see wherein the treatment of infantile paralysis has beenmaterially advanced. On the other hand I would rather the kind andgentle Belgian hare should be offered up as a sacrifice upon theoperating table and leave behind him a large family of little Belgianheirs and heiresses--dependent upon the charity of a cruel world--thanthat I should have something painful which can be avoided through makinghim a martyr. I would rather any white rabbit on earth should have theAsiatic cholera twice than that I should have it just once. These are mysincere convictions, and I will not attempt to disguise them. 

Thanks too, to medical science we know about germs and serums and dietsand all that. Our less fortunate ancestors didn't know about them. Theywere befogged in ignorance. As recently as the generation immediatelypreceding ours people were unacquainted with the simplest rules ofhygiene. They didn't care whether the housefly wiped his feet beforehe came into the house or not. The gentleman with the drooping, cream-separator mustache was at perfect liberty to use the commondrinking cup on the railroad train. The appendix lurked in itssnug retreat, undisturbed by the prying fingers of curiosity. Thefever-bearing skeeter buzzed and flitted, stinging where he pleased. Thegerm theory was unfathomed. Suitable food for an invalid was anythingthe invalid could afford to buy. Fresh air, and more especially freshnight air, was regarded as dangerous, and people hermetically sealedthemselves in before retiring. Not daily as at present was the worldgladdened by the tidings that science had unearthed some new andparticularly unpleasant disease. It never occurred to a mother that sheshould sterilize the slipper before spanking her offspring. Babies werenot reared antiseptically, but just so. Nobody was aware of microbes. 

In short, our sires and our grandsires abode in the midst of perils. They were surrounded on all sides by things that are immediately fatalto the human system. Not a single one of them had a right to pass hissecond birthday. In the light of what we know, we realize that by nowthis world should be but a barren waste dotted at frequent intervalswith large graveyards and populated only by a few dispossessed andhungry bacteria, hanging over the cemetery fence singing: Driven FromHome!

In the conditions generally prevalent up to twenty-five years ago, mostof us never had any license, really, to be born at all. Yet look howmany of us are now here. In this age of research I hesitate to attemptto account for it, except on the entirely unscientific theory that whatyou don't know doesn't hurt you. Doubtless a physician could give you abetter explanation, but his would cost you more than mine has. 

But we digress. Let us get back to our main subject, which is myself. Ishall never forget my first real meal in that hospital. There was quitea good deal of talk about it beforehand. My nurse kept telling me thaton the next day the doctor had promised I might have something to eat. I could hardly wait. I had visions of a tenderloin steak smothered infried onions, and some French-fried potatoes, and a tall table-limitstack of wheat cakes, and a few other incidental comfits and kickshaws. I could hardly wait for that meal. 

The next day came and she brought it to me, and I partook thereof. Itwas the white of an egg. For dessert I licked a stamp; but this I didclandestinely and by stealth, without saying anything about it to her. Iwas not supposed to have any sweets. 

On the occasion of the next feast the diet was varied. I had a sip ofone of those fermented milk products. You probably know the sort ofthing I mean. Even before you've swallowed it, it tastes as though ithad already disagreed with you. The nurse said this food was predigestedbut did not tell me by whom. Nor did I ask her. I started to, butthought better of it. Sometimes one is all the happier for not knowingtoo much. 

A little later on, seeing that I had not suffered an attack ofindigestion from this debauch, they gave me junket. In the dictionary Ihave looked up the definitions of junket. I quote:

 JUNKET, v. I. T. To entertain by feasting; regale. II. I. To give or take part in an entertainment or excursion; feast in company; picnic; revel. 

 JUNKET, n. A merry feast or excursion; picnic. 

When the author of a dictionary tries to be frivolous he only succeedsin making himself appear foolish. 

I know not how it may be in the world at large, but in a hospital, junket is a custard that by some subtle process has been denuded ofthose ingredients which make a custard fascinating and exciting. Ittastes as though the eggs, which form its underlying basis, had beenlaid in a fit of pique by a hen that was severely upset at the time. 

Hereafter when the junket is passed round somebody else may have myshare. I'll stick to the mince pie a la mode. And the first cigar of myconvalescence--ah, that, too, abides as a vivid memory! Dropping inone morning to replace the wrappings Doctor Z said I might smoke inmoderation. So the nurse brought me a cigar, and I lit it and took onedeep puff; but only one. I laid it aside. I said to the nurse:

"A mistake has been made here. I do not want a cooking cigar, youunderstand. I desire a cigar for personal use. This one is full of herbsand simples, I think. It suggests a New England boiled dinner, and not avery good New England boiled dinner at that. Let us try again. "

She brought another cigar. It was not satisfactory either. Then sheshowed me the box--an orthodox box containing cigars of a recognized andpreviously dependable brand. I could only conclude that a root-and-herbdoctor had bought an interest in the business and was introducing hisown pet notions into the formula. 

But came a day--as the fancy writers say when they wish to convey theimpression that a day has come, but hate to do it in a commonplacemanner--came a day when my cigar tasted as a cigar should taste and foodhad the proper relish to it; and my appetite came back again and foundthe old home place not so greatly changed after all. 

And then shortly thereafter came another day, when I, all repletewith expensive stitches, might drape the customary habiliments ofcivilization about my attenuated frame and go forth to mingle with myfellow beings. I have been mingling pretty steadily ever since, for nowI have something to talk about--a topic good for any company; congenial, an absorbing topic. 

I can spot a brother member a block away. I hasten up to him and givehim the grand hailing sign of the order. He opens his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it. 

"Speaking of operations--" I say. And then I'm off. Believe me, it's thelife!