The Doctor’s Dilemma

epub:type="z3998:persona">Walpole Triumphantly. I haven’t got one. Look at me! I’ve no symptoms. I’m as sound as a bell. About five percent of the population haven’t got any; and I’m one of the five percent. I’ll give you an instance. You know Mrs. Jack Foljambe: the smart Mrs. Foljambe? I operated at Easter on her sister-in-law, Lady Gorran, and found she had the biggest sac I ever saw: it held about two ounces. Well, Mrs. Foljambe had the right spirit⁠—the genuine hygienic instinct. She couldn’t stand her sister-in-law being a clean, sound woman, and she simply a whited sepulchre. So she insisted on my operating on her, too. And by George, sir, she hadn’t any sac at all. Not a trace! Not a rudiment!! I was so taken aback⁠—so interested, that I forgot to take the sponges out, and was stitching them up inside her when the nurse missed them. Somehow, I’d made sure she’d have an exceptionally large one. He sits down on the couch, squaring his shoulders and shooting his hands out of his cuffs as he sets his knuckles akimbo. Emmy Looking in. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington. A long and expectant pause follows this announcement. All look to the door; but there is no Sir Ralph. Ridgeon At last. Were is he? Emmy Looking back. Drat him, I thought he was following me. He’s stayed down to talk to that lady. Ridgeon Exploding. I told you to tell that lady⁠—Emmy vanishes. Walpole Jumping up again. Oh, by the way, Ridgeon, that reminds me. I’ve been talking to that poor girl. It’s her husband; and she thinks it’s a case of consumption: the usual wrong diagnosis: these damned general practitioners ought never to be allowed to touch a patient except under the orders of a consultant. She’s been describing his symptoms to me; and the case is as plain as a pikestaff: bad blood-poisoning. Now she’s poor. She can’t afford to have him operated on. Well, you send him to me: I’ll do it for nothing. There’s room for him in my nursing home. I’ll put him straight, and feed him up and make him happy. I like making people happy. He goes to the chair near the window. Emmy Looking in. Here he is. Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington wafts himself into the room. He is a tall man, with a head like a tall and slender egg. He has been in his time a slender man; but now, in his sixth decade, his waistcoat has filled out somewhat. His fair eyebrows arch good-naturedly and uncritically. He has a most musical voice; his speech is a perpetual anthem; and he never tires of the sound of it. He radiates an enormous self-satisfaction, cheering, reassuring, healing by the mere incompatibility of disease or anxiety with his welcome presence. Even broken bones, it is said, have been known to unite at the sound of his voice: he is a born healer, as independent of mere treatment and skill as any Christian scientist. When he expands into oratory or scientific exposition, he is as energetic as Walpole; but it is with a bland, voluminous, atmospheric energy, which envelops its subject and its audience, and makes interruption or inattention impossible, and imposes veneration and credulity on all but the strongest minds. He is known in the medical world as B.B.; and the envy roused by his success in practice is softened by the conviction that he is, scientifically considered, a colossal humbug: the fact being that, though he knows just as much (and just as little) as his contemporaries, the qualifications that pass muster in common men reveal their weakness when hung on his egregious personality. B.B. Aha! Sir Colenso. Sir Colenso, eh? Welcome to the order of knighthood. Ridgeon Shaking hands. Thank you, B.B. B.B. What! Sir Patrick! And how are we today? a little chilly? a little stiff? but hale and still the cleverest of us all. Sir Patrick grunts. What! Walpole! the absentminded beggar: eh? Walpole What does that mean? B.B. Have you forgotten the lovely opera singer I sent you to have that growth taken off her vocal cords? Walpole Springing to his feet. Great heavens, man, you don’t mean to say you sent her for a throat operation! B.B. Archly. Aha! Ha ha! Aha! Trilling like a lark as he shakes his finger at Walpole. You removed her nuciform sac. Well, well! force of habit! force of habit! Never mind, ne‑e‑e‑ver mind. She got back her voice after it, and thinks you the greatest surgeon alive; and so you are, so you are, so you are. Walpole In a tragic whisper, intensely serious. Blood-poisoning. I see. I see. He sits down again. Sir Patrick And how is a certain distinguished family getting on under your care, Sir Ralph? B.B. Our friend Ridgeon will be gratified to hear that I have tried his opsonin treatment on little Prince Henry with complete success. Ridgeon Startled and anxious. But how⁠— B.B. Continuing. I suspected typhoid: the head gardener’s boy had it; so I just called at St. Anne’s one day and got a tube of your very excellent serum. You were out, unfortunately. Ridgeon I hope they explained to you carefully⁠— B.B. Waving away the absurd suggestion. Lord bless you, my dear fellow, I didn’t need any explanations. I’d left my wife in the carriage at the door; and I’d no time to be taught my business by your young chaps. I know all about it. I’ve handled these antitoxins ever since they first came out. Ridgeon But they’re not antitoxins; and they’re dangerous unless you use them at the right time. B.B. Of course they are. Everything is dangerous unless you take it at the right time. An apple at breakfast does you good: an apple at bedtime upsets you for a week. There are only two rules for antitoxins. First, don’t be afraid of them: second,