The Doctors Dilemma | Page 5

have an hour to spare;
and youll find out why.
SIR PATRICK [grumbling and fumbling for his spectacles] Oh, bother
your pamphlets. Whats the practice of it? [Looking at the pamphlet]
Opsonin? What the devil is opsonin?
RIDGEON. Opsonin is what you butter the disease germs with to make
your white blood corpuscles eat them. [He sits down again on the
couch].
SIR PATRICK. Thats not new. Ive heard this notion that the white
corpuscles--what is it that whats his name?--Metchnikoff--calls them?
RIDGEON. Phagocytes.
SIR PATRICK. Aye, phagocytes: yes, yes, yes. Well, I heard this
theory that the phagocytes eat up the disease germs years ago: long
before you came into fashion. Besides, they dont always eat them.
RIDGEON. They do when you butter them with opsonin.
SIR PATRICK. Gammon.
RIDGEON. No: it's not gammon. What it comes to in practice is this.
The phagocytes wont eat the microbes unless the microbes are nicely

buttered for them. Well, the patient manufactures the butter for himself
all right; but my discovery is that the manufacture of that butter, which
I call opsonin, goes on in the system by ups and downs--Nature being
always rhythmical, you know--and that what the inoculation does is to
stimulate the ups or downs, as the case may be. If we had inoculated
Jane Marsh when her butter factory was on the up-grade, we should
have cured her arm. But we got in on the downgrade and lost her arm
for her. I call the up-grade the positive phase and the down-grade the
negative phase. Everything depends on your inoculating at the right
moment. Inoculate when the patient is in the negative phase and you
kill: inoculate when the patient is in the positive phase and you cure.
SIR PATRICK. And pray how are you to know whether the patient is
in the positive or the negative phase?
RIDGEON. Send a drop of the patient's blood to the laboratory at St.
Anne's; and in fifteen minutes I'll give you his opsonin index in figures.
If the figure is one, inoculate and cure: if it's under point eight,
inoculate and kill. Thats my discovery: the most important that has
been made since Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. My
tuberculosis patients dont die now.
SIR PATRICK. And mine do when my inoculation catches them in the
negative phase, as you call it. Eh?
RIDGEON. Precisely. To inject a vaccine into a patient without first
testing his opsonin is as near murder as a respectable practitioner can
get. If I wanted to kill s man I should kill him that way.
EMMY [looking in] Will you see a lady that wants her husband's lungs
cured?
RIDGEON [impatiently] No. Havnt I told you I will see nobody?[To
Sir Patrick] I live in a state of siege ever since it got about that I'm a
magician who can cure consumption with a drop of serum. [To Emmy]
Dont come to me again about people who have no appointments. I tell
you I can see nobody.
EMMY. Well, I'll tell her to wait a bit.
RIDGEON [furious] Youll tell her I cant see her, and send her away:
do you hear?
EMMY [unmoved] Well, will you see Mr Cutler Walpole? He dont
want a cure: he only wants to congratulate you.
RIDGEON. Of course. Shew him up. [She turns to go]. Stop. [To Sir

Patrick] I want two minutes more with you between ourselves. [To
Emmy] Emmy: ask Mr. Walpole to wait just two minutes, while I
finish a consultation.
EMMY. Oh, he'll wait all right. He's talking to the poor lady. [She goes
out].
SIR PATRICK. Well? what is it?
RIDGEON. Dont laugh at me. I want your advice.
SIR PATRICK. Professional advice?
RIDGEON. Yes. Theres something the matter with me. I dont know
what it is.
SIR PATRICK. Neither do I. I suppose youve been sounded.
RIDGEON. Yes, of course. Theres nothing wrong with any of the
organs: nothing special, anyhow. But I have a curious aching: I dont
know where: I cant localize it. Sometimes I think it's my heart:
sometimes I suspect my spine. It doesnt exactly hurt me; but it unsettles
me completely. I feel that something is going to happen. And there are
other symptoms. Scraps of tunes come into my head that seem to me
very pretty, though theyre quite commonplace.
SIR PATRICK. Do you hear voices?
RIDGEON. No.
SIR PATRICK. I'm glad of that. When my patients tell me that theyve
made a greater discovery than Harvey, and that they hear voices, I lock
them up.
RIDGEON. You think I'm mad! Thats just the suspicion that has come
across me once or twice. Tell me the truth: I can bear it.
SIR PATRICK. Youre sure there are no voices?
RIDGEON. Quite sure.
SIR PATRICK. Then