The Doctors Dilemma | Page 6

the porters and students held him down; and you had to set your teeth and finish the job fast. Nowadays you work at your ease; and the pain doesn't come until afterwards, when youve taken your cheque and rolled up your bag and left the house. I tell you, Colly, chloroform has done a lot of mischief. It's enabled every fool to be a surgeon.
RIDGEON [to Emmy, who answers the bell] Shew Mr Walpole up.
EMMY. He's talking to the lady.
RIDGEON [exasperated] Did I not tell you--
Emmy goes out without heeding him. He gives it up, with a shrug, and plants himself with his back to the console, leaning resignedly against it.
SIR PATRICK. I know your Cutler Walpoles and their like. Theyve found out that a man's body's full of bits and scraps of old organs he has no mortal use for. Thanks to chloroform, you can cut half a dozen of them out without leaving him any the worse, except for the illness and the guineas it costs him. I knew the Walpoles well fifteen years ago. The father used to snip off the ends of people's uvulas for fifty guineas, and paint throats with caustic every day for a year at two guineas a time. His brother- in-law extirpated tonsils for two hundred guineas until he took up women's cases at double the fees. Cutler himself worked hard at anatomy to find something fresh to operate on; and at last he got hold of something he calls the nuciform sac, which he's made quite the fashion. People pay him five hundred guineas to cut it out. They might as well get their hair cut for all the difference it makes; but I suppose they feel important after it. You cant go out to dinner now without your neighbor bragging to you of some useless operation or other.
EMMY [announcing] Mr Cutler Walpole. [She goes out].
Cutler Walpole is an energetic, unhesitating man of forty, with a cleanly modelled face, very decisive and symmetrical about the shortish, salient, rather pretty nose, and the three trimly turned corners made by his chin and jaws. In comparison with Ridgeon's delicate broken lines, and Sir Patrick's softly rugged aged ones, his face looks machine-made and beeswaxed; but his scrutinizing, daring eyes give it life and force. He seems never at a loss, never in doubt: one feels that if he made a mistake he would make it thoroughly and firmly. He has neat, well-nourished hands, short arms, and is built for strength and compactness rather than for height. He is smartly dressed with a fancy waistcoat, a richly colored scarf secured by a handsome ring, ornaments on his watch chain, spats on his shoes, and a general air of the well-to-do sportsman about him. He goes straight across to Ridgeon and shakes hands with him.
WALPOLE. My dear Ridgeon, best wishes! heartiest congratulations! You deserve it.
RIDGEON. Thank you.
WALPOLE. As a man, mind you. You deserve it as a man. The opsonin is simple rot, as any capable surgeon can tell you; but we're all delighted to see your personal qualities officially recognized. Sir Patrick: how are you? I sent you a paper lately about a little thing I invented: a new saw. For shoulder blades.
SIR PATRICK [meditatively] Yes: I got it. It's a good saw: a useful, handy instrument.
WALPOLE [confidently] I knew youd see its points.
SIR PATRICK. Yes: I remember that saw sixty-five years ago.
WALPOLE. What!
SIR PATRICK. It was called a cabinetmaker's jimmy then.
WALPOLE. Get out! Nonsense! Cabinetmaker be--
RIDGEON. Never mind him, Walpole. He's jealous.
WALPOLE. By the way, I hope I'm not disturbing you two in anything private.
RIDGEON. No no. Sit down. I was only consulting him. I'm rather out of sorts. Overwork, I suppose.
WALPOLE [swiftly] I know whats the matter with you. I can see it in your complexion. I can feel it in the grip of your hand.
RIDGEON. What is it?
WALPOLE. Blood-poisoning.
RIDGEON. Blood-poisoning! Impossible.
WALPOLE. I tell you, blood-poisoning. Ninety-five per cent of the human race suffer from chronic blood-poisoning, and die of it. It's as simple as A.B.C. Your nuciform sac is full of decaying matter--undigested food and waste products--rank ptomaines. Now you take my advice, Ridgeon. Let me cut it out for you. You'll be another man afterwards.
SIR PATRICK. Dont you like him as he is?
WALPOLE. No I dont. I dont like any man who hasnt a healthy circulation. I tell you this: in an intelligently governed country people wouldnt be allowed to go about with nuciform sacs, making themselves centres of infection. The operation ought to be compulsory: it's ten times more important than vaccination.
SIR PATRICK. Have you had your own sac removed, may I ask?
WALPOLE [triumphantly] I havnt got one. Look at me! Ive no symptoms. I'm as sound as a bell. About five per cent of the population havnt got