Life Unveiled, by a Child of the Drumlins — Chapter 10 Part I - The Medic-Concluded

THE “MEDIC”--_Concluded_ There were four hospital appointments of one year each open to the seniors, each student receiving board and laundry, and giving in return his or her services, except when attending lectures.

I had already declined a position as house-physician at Lasell Seminary, to which one of the retiring seniors had recommended me, hoping to secure the next hospital vacancy on January first, though letting go the bird in the hand with considerable hesitation.

Either position would be a great help financially, but the one at the hospital, if I could obtain it, would offer exceptional advantages from a medical point of view;

besides would hold over six months after graduation.

We three applicants were in turn called before the Faculty and questioned as to our past life and experience, our standing in college, and our dispensary work.

Not having thought to supply myself with letters of recommendation, I was not a little disturbed when the other girls showed me theirs.

My turn came last, and I was considerably awed on entering the room where the professors were congregated, even though the dear Dean, and Dr. “Conrad,” and the friendly professor in _materia medica_ were among the number.

My work in the Post Office, and my two terms of country school-teaching were all I could think of when they asked me what I had to offer in the way of experience as to fitness for the position.

Our humorous little chest professor, Dr. C----, could not resist a joke at my expense: “I see your standing in anatomy is 100 plus 1--ahem!

--ah--just explain to me, won’t you, what this means?

Does it mean that you know one more thing than Dr. Matson knows about anatomy--or one more thing than there _is_ to know?

” I snickered at this, but quickly sobered and explained about the plus marks in quizzes counting on our final marks; and, his eyes twinkling, he professed his curiosity satisfied.

Then some of the others put their queries, and finally they let me go.

In the adjoining room we three sat in suspense while they talked us over, each of us dreading yet hoping to be the lucky one.

Presently Dr. C---- came to us, no pleasantry now; he looked really uncomfortable;

fidgeting at his collar and cuffs, and glancing from one to the other of us, he said apologetically that they were sorry there were not three positions vacant, so as to give us all a chance to demonstrate our ability, but--hm!

hm!

--since there was only one, they had decided in favour of--ah--Miss Arnold.

I felt almost guilty at being chosen, but the other girls were very comforting, and the welcome the house-staff gave me, when I went downstairs, was cheering indeed.

It was a great load off my mind--no more board to pay, to say nothing of other advantages.

While the house-staff were questioning me as to the “grilling” I had received, the faculty meeting having dispersed, some of the professors dropped in the office.

Dr. S----, in a charmingly facetious way, told the house officers why he voted for “Dr. ” Arnold (with a low bow to me as he said that the title I was to earn next June was now mine by courtesy)--he had voted for her, he said, because she once brought him a “novel” patient from a prominent old school physician--no less a person than Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes!

Another spoke in a more serious vein--my work in the Post Office he thought ought to have helped me to learn adaptability; but the irrepressible little Dr. C---- said he had chosen me because even Dr. Matson was willing to concede that I was more than perfect in anatomy.

Valuable as was the year in the hospital, I got all too little out of it, considering what it offered.

The daily association with trained physicians and surgeons, and familiarity with illness, with hospital methods, with surgical technique, were among the unquestioned benefits.

The three of us who were undergraduates had to work particularly hard, as there was the college work to keep up, as well as the exacting demands of ward and operating-room work.

Though on the medical side for the first six months, I had the anesthetizing to do for a time.

It was disagreeable work.

Often all would go well and, interest centring on the operation, no one would notice the humble etherizer.

Again, though I was seemingly just as painstaking, the patient would become cyanotic, and I would have to remove the cone, pull out the tongue, and perhaps resort to other measures to reëstablish respiration.

If the operator noticed this, I would get very nervous, especially if it happened when a certain irascible surgeon was operating; for, impatient of the slightest delay, he would scold before the whole class.

If I anesthetized so lightly that the patient moved, or--horror of horrors!

--if he began retching, how mortified I was!

And if I made the opposite mistake of pushing the ether too far--the agony I suffered, even after he was out of danger!

to think how near he came to death through my incompetency!

It all came easier after a while, but I was distinctly relieved when, after three months, I was graduated from the ether-cone, and promoted to “running instruments,” though there were trials even here.

So many surgeons, each with his different methods--it was no easy task for a beginner who knew little about the technique of operations, and had no special aptitude for anticipating just what instruments were needed and when.

I think I never made a specially good assistant.

I

was not mechanical enough myself; but it was a pleasure to attend some of the surgeons--those who were cool and collected; who remembered our inexperience; who explained ahead their probable procedures, and called out clearly the name of the instrument they wished, if we did not anticipate them.

One of the operators, though skilled, was so nervous he would fairly jump up and down if one handed him a pair of forceps when he was not ready for them, or gave him the wrong retractor, or if the cat-gut broke when tying off arteries.

Original in his methods, still he expected one to know what he wanted, no matter what, in his confusion, he said.

He would throw a knife across the room if it was not sharp enough, or was not just to his fancy; and how he would scold and abuse us at times!

--seldom at private operations when just the house-staff was present, but on clinic days when the entire student-body was assembled and also visiting physicians--at such times he was especially nervous and would make the fur fly.

“_Can’t_ you tell what I want before I want it?

--never did see such stupid assistants.

” “Who sharpened these knives?

” “Who prepared this cat-gut?

” “_Can’t_ you keep your patient under ether--have I got to operate and etherize, too?

” How furious we used to get!

We were all in the same boat, though I am sure I was more stupid than the others, especially when he was concerned.

But he would come around afterwards, while we were washing up instruments (and at the same time resolving that we were fools to stay on there and take his abuse), and by a few words he would, as it were, pat us all on the back; say we had helped him out of a very trying operation; that he never meant what he said when operating, and so on.

And, so potent was his penitent manner, we were usually mollified--till the next time.

As an operator we respected him; his cases always did well.

We knew he was hot-headed, and that afterwards he was always ashamed of his temper; we also knew that others had lived through just such experiences, and that other students stood ready to take our positions if we abandoned them.

Serious were the daily events by which we were surrounded, but the irrepressibility of youth asserted itself.

Mingled with the memory of solemn scenes and grave responsibilities are recollections of many a jolly hour within the hospital walls.

I recall in this connection the initiation that our colleagues, Fenton and Laidlaw, gave me shortly after I went there.

I roomed with Dr. Thorndike who had gone on the house-staff three months before.

One night shortly after we had gone to bed we suddenly smelled _amyl nitrite_ so strong that we got up to investigate.

All was quiet in the hall and in the private rooms near by--the odour was clearly more penetrating right there in our room.

After considerable search we found a tiny moist streak on the floor--those young doctors had injected a hypodermic syringeful of that pungent drug through our key-hole!

We turned out our light and went back to bed, chagrined that, lurking about somewhere, they had doubtless heard us and known that we had risen to their bait.

Soon we heard stealthy steps outside in the hall, then a squirt and a splash, and through the key-hole came a bigger stream--this time they had used a large syringe and injected strong ammonia.

Of course we were forced to vacate and air our room--just what the besiegers wanted!

They, and we, got all the more fun out of these practical jokes because we could not risk disturbing the patients, and also had to be guarded lest the wary matron, or the night nurses, discover our pranks.

We were not above the pranks, but did not wish to impair our prestige as house-officers.

One evening Laidlaw, looking sober as a deacon, came to the office and requested us to repair to an upper room for consultation.

He looked so dignified we knew something was up.

Closing the door upon us, and solemnly unbuttoning his coat, he revealed a fat mince pie.

After we had discussed it to the last crumb, and I had voted it the best pie I ever ate, he informed me it was a brandied pie.

In those days I refused pies or sauces if I knew they contained brandy or sherry.

Having wheedled the cook to put a double dose in that pie, he and the others chuckled to see the little teetotaller partake of it so greedily.

At that time I was gullible, fairly docile, and must have been rare sport for the more sophisticated three.

The young men lectured me in a fatherly way, and really did me a good service in getting me over some of my unduly prim ways.

The first college year I had been so “proper” I would not let my father see me in my “gym” suit; yet before the year was over Miss Thorndike and I, to shock Miss Wilkins, had had our tin-types taken in those suits!

One morning at the breakfast table, at the hospital, I was shocked to find a pencil sketch of two young women gymnasts, a rough sketch which implied that the one who made it must have seen this tin-type.

Knowing it to be the work of Fenton and Laidlaw, I was distressed to think they must have seen the original;

but was greatly relieved to find that Dr. Thorndike and a girl friend had simply described it minutely to them, so they could make me think they had seen it.

After that Miss Thorndike’s friend, seeing how I was given to straining at gnats and swallowing camels, made a clever sketch of a prim maiden sitting in a large chair, the arms and legs of which were covered with gloves and stockings, while a statue of Venus (draped) stood near, and the maiden, holding a fan between her face and the draped statue, was absorbed in a book of Zola’s!

Though I had never read a word of Zola’s I saw what a clever hit this was at my inconsistencies.

Still I did not consider myself prudish; I could discuss medical topics freely with any one without embarrassment; but did not like jesting about certain matters; and perhaps, when in dead earnest, _was_ rather slow in seeing the funny side of things.

So the others claimed I needed some shocking and disciplining to get me over my squeamishness, and perhaps I did.

I remember how Fenton scolded me one day for objecting when he started to brush the lint from my gown: “There’s no sense in your being so prim--I don’t want you to be as free and easy as Miss ---- is, but you certainly do carry modesty too far.

” He was so fine and honest, I know I profited by that and other advice of his.

We sometimes read aloud together in the evening, oftenest from “Pickwick Papers,” having uproarious times there in the office, with no patients or nurses near.

One evening, when Dr. Thorndike was away, Laidlaw brought in a book saying, “I’ve found a brand new author--they say it’s great--let’s try it.

” It was Amélie Rives’s “The Quick or the Dead.

” We began it gaily and innocently, at least I did, reading aloud by turns.

From the start it was very fervid, and soon I, and I think the young men also, began to be embarrassed.

Just as I was feeling uneasy and wondering how I was going to get out of it, a bright little woman physician whom we all knew, passing the office door and hearing our gales of laughter (for we were making all sorts of fun of it to relieve our embarrassment) stopped and asked what we were reading.

She looked surprised on being told, but made no comment about it, and as she turned to go, asked casually if she could speak with me later, when I was at liberty.

Glad of an excuse, I said I could stop then, and went with her.

Telling me that she had read the book, she said she thought I would find it quite impossible to go on with it with the young men, and suggested, as a way out, that I slip down to the office after they had gone to their rooms, get the book and read it, then tell them I had already finished it; they would then, she said, read it by themselves, and soon drop the subject.

That night I did as she advised.

They grumbled and rallied me about being so eager that I couldn’t wait to finish it with them; but they soon let the subject rest.

For years I blushed whenever I heard that book mentioned.

It is the only book I ever read that I feel ashamed to admit having read, though now I have only the faintest recollection what it was all about.

Our hospital life was a full one--much work and many emotions crowded in the days: patients coming to be operated; many operations meaning life or death, and even the less serious ones always approached by the patients with dread and apprehension.

It fell to the house-officers to receive and reassure patients and their friends; to calm their anxiety; to inspire their confidence in the operators, and their hope for the outcome.

Sometimes the apprehension of the patient, and his forebodings, so weighed me down, that I found it difficult to be very reassuring; but I learned in time to disregard these, and was then, of course, of more help to the patients.

I recall one case in which the surgeon found such complications that there was nothing to do but bring the operation to a close, with the hope that the patient could rally from the anesthetic and have some minutes with her friends before the end.

As she sank steadily, with what breathless but orderly haste we worked!

That drawn, tense look on the surgeon’s face, the awful stillness in the operating room!

Actuated by one motive, the assistants were so many extra hands for the surgeon, anticipating his needs to the letter.

Restoratives were applied, every conceivable means was employed to counteract the collapse into which the patient was sinking.

Giving his entire attention to the field of operation, and working with marvellous rapidity, the surgeon was taking the last stitches, when we told him she was gone.

Nervelessly he dropped his hands, leaving Laidlaw and me to finish the stitches and apply the dressings.

The look of agony on the face he lifted to us was a revelation.

I had never realized till then what the taking of such a serious case means to a surgeon, and was more especially impressed as I had thought this particular surgeon cold and self-centred.

A few minutes later he came to me, his voice shaking, and asked if, as a special favour to him, I would go down and speak with the friends, and tell them carefully about the outcome.

Not an easy thing to do, but I felt so much compassion for him I would not have hesitated had it been twice as hard.

Sometimes our patients were poor and obscure; again, as in the above case, from well-known Boston families--the extremes of life met in that little hospital of about one hundred beds, and scenes grave and gay alternated in rapid succession.

One day a big demonstrative fellow under etherization caused me no end of embarrassment: It was an emergency case sandwiched in between others, and they brought him in the operating room only partly anesthetized.

It was a day when the room was full of students.

I was busy, passing back and forth, getting things ready, when in the maudlin loquacity of that first-stage of ether he threw out his arms and begged me to come and hold his hand.

They tried to quiet him, and to push the ether, but he took it poorly and resisted vigorously, and kept addressing to me many endearing epithets as he entreated me to come and hold his hand.

Of course the students enjoyed it, and suppressed titters passed along the rows of spectators.

My face reddened furiously.

I tried to keep out of sight as much as possible, but with the persistence of one partly under ether, he kept calling, “Let her come and hold my hand--let the little angel hold my hand.

” The students were highly amused, and even the surgeon, who ordinarily never betrayed amusement in the amphitheatre, showed a suspicious twitching about the mouth, and finally, the entreaties continuing, said to me, “Dr. Arnold, I think perhaps it will quiet him if you do as he requests.

” There was nothing to do but comply.

I had to step up to the table and hold the big baby’s hand, to the delight of the students--especially to one Breynton, one of the house-staff over at the Dispensary, who, having been a victim of some of my practical jokes, rejoiced at my discomfiture.

When Fenton’s term of service ended, and he went to practise in a neighbouring city, he left the rest of us disconsolate.

We four had had such good times together.

He was a fine, manly fellow, very kind to the patients, conscientious, impatient of pretense--it was he who had lectured me about my prudishness.

He had a keen sense of humour and a fine sense of honour; and the friendship begun in those hospital days has been one of the most satisfactory in my life--a real _camaraderie_.

We did not take so kindly to his successor, Dr. James--a genial but presuming youth, harder to keep in place, more daring, more flirtatious.

It wasn’t long before James was teaching me to dance in the amphitheatre, after we would get the instruments put away, he whistling the music.

I soon saw that that would not do.

But we often played and sang together; he had a fine tenor voice.

Dr. Thorndike’s term expiring shortly after she took her degree, and no one applying through that summer, there were then but three of us to do the work previously shared by four.

Our Commencement was held in Tremont Temple, the whole University participating--an immense affair, very impersonal, it meant far less to me than our modest little Commencement of Academy days.

Coming, too, in the midst of hospital work, it was but an event in the day.

Still, I remember a thrill, as of something achieved, when, filing across the platform with hundreds of other students, I received my diploma from President Warren.

Each department of the University sat in a body;

each student stepped upon the big platform as his name was called out;

his diploma was handed him; and the generous applause from his own student-body sounded very good, as (if a “medic”) he walked down the steps on the other side, a full-fledged M. D.

Most of the graduates were immediately confronted by the vexed question of where to “locate,” but those of us in the hospital had six months’ grace before that bugbear stared us in the face.