The Doctor’s Dilemma

Patrick I’m glad of that. When my patients tell me that they’ve made a greater discovery than Harvey, and that they hear voices, I lock them up. Ridgeon You think I’m mad! That’s just the suspicion that has come across me once or twice. Tell me the truth: I can bear it. Sir Patrick You’re sure there are no voices? Ridgeon Quite sure. Sir Patrick Then it’s only foolishness. Ridgeon Have you ever met anything like it before in your practice? Sir Patrick Oh, yes: often. It’s very common between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two. It sometimes comes on again at forty or thereabouts. You’re a bachelor, you see. It’s not serious⁠—if you’re careful. Ridgeon About my food? Sir Patrick No: about your behavior. There’s nothing wrong with your spine; and there’s nothing wrong with your heart; but there’s something wrong with your common sense. You’re not going to die; but you may be going to make a fool of yourself. So be careful. Ridgeon I see you don’t believe in my discovery. Well, sometimes I don’t believe in it myself. Thank you all the same. Shall we have Walpole up? Sir Patrick Oh, have him up. Ridgeon rings. He’s a clever operator, is Walpole, though he’s only one of your chloroform surgeons. In my early days, you made your man drunk; and 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 you’ve 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. Show 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. They’ve 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 can’t 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 you’d 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 what’s 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 percent 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 Don’t you like him as he is? Walpole No I don’t. I don’t like any man who hasn’t a healthy circulation. I tell you this: in an intelligently governed country people wouldn’t 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?