The Doctor’s Dilemma

moment. You will all be intensely interested in this. I was put on the track by accident. I had a typhoid case and a tetanus case side by side in the hospital: a beadle and a city missionary. Think of what that meant for them, poor fellows! Can a beadle be dignified with typhoid? Can a missionary be eloquent with lockjaw? No. no. Well, I got some typhoid antitoxin from Ridgeon and a tube of Muldooley’s anti-tetanus serum. But the missionary jerked all my things off the table in one of his paroxysms; and in replacing them I put Ridgeon’s tube where Muldooley’s ought to have been. The consequence was that I inoculated the typhoid case for tetanus and the tetanus case for typhoid. The doctors look greatly concerned. B.B., undamped, smiles triumphantly. Well, they recovered. They recovered. Except for a touch of St. Vitus’s dance the missionary’s as well today as ever; and the beadle’s ten times the man he was. Blenkinsop I’ve known things like that happen. They can’t be explained. B.B. Severely. Blenkinsop: there is nothing that cannot be explained by science. What did I do? Did I fold my hands helplessly and say that the case could not be explained? By no means. I sat down and used my brains. I thought the case out on scientific principles. I asked myself why didn’t the missionary die of typhoid on top of tetanus, and the beadle of tetanus on top of typhoid? There’s a problem for you, Ridgeon. Think, Sir Patrick. Reflect, Blenkinsop. Look at it without prejudice, Walpole. What is the real work of the antitoxin? Simply to stimulate the phagocytes. Very well. But so long as you stimulate the phagocytes, what does it matter which particular sort of serum you use for the purpose? Haha! Eh? Do you see? Do you grasp it? Ever since that I’ve used all sorts of antitoxins absolutely indiscriminately, with perfectly satisfactory results. I inoculated the little prince with your stuff, Ridgeon, because I wanted to give you a lift; but two years ago I tried the experiment of treating a scarlet fever case with a sample of hydrophobia serum from the Pasteur Institute, and it answered capitally. It stimulated the phagocytes; and the phagocytes did the rest. That is why Sir Patrick’s father found that inoculation cured all fevers. It stimulated the phagocytes. He throws himself into his chair, exhausted with the triumph of his demonstration, and beams magnificently on them. Emmy Looking in. Mr. Walpole: your motor’s come for you; and it’s frightening Sir Patrick’s horses; so come along quick. Walpole Rising. Goodbye, Ridgeon. Ridgeon Goodbye; and many thanks. B.B. You see my point, Walpole? Emmy He can’t wait, Sir Ralph. The carriage will be into the area if he don’t come. Walpole I’m coming. To B.B.. There’s nothing in your point: phagocytosis is pure rot: the cases are all blood-poisoning; and the knife is the real remedy. Bye-bye, Sir Paddy. Happy to have met you, Mr. Blenkinsop. Now, Emmy. He goes out, followed by Emmy. B.B. Sadly. Walpole has no intellect. A mere surgeon. Wonderful operator; but, after all, what is operating? Only manual labor. Brain⁠—brain remains master of the situation. The nuciform sac is utter nonsense: there’s no such organ. It’s a mere accidental kink in the membrane, occurring in perhaps two-and-a-half percent of the population. Of course I’m glad for Walpole’s sake that the operation is fashionable; for he’s a dear good fellow; and after all, as I always tell people, the operation will do them no harm: indeed, I’ve known the nervous shakeup and the fortnight in bed do people a lot of good after a hard London season; but still it’s a shocking fraud. Rising. Well, I must be toddling. Goodbye, Paddy Sir Patrick grunts goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, my dear Blenkinsop, goodbye! Goodbye, Ridgeon. Don’t fret about your health: you know what to do: if your liver is sluggish, a little mercury never does any harm. If you feel restless, try bromide, If that doesn’t answer, a stimulant, you know: a little phosphorus and strychnine. If you can’t sleep, trional, trional, trion⁠— Sir Patrick Drily. But no drugs, Colly, remember that. B.B. Firmly. Certainly not. Quite right, Sir Patrick. As temporary expedients, of course; but as treatment, no, No. Keep away from the chemist’s shop, my dear Ridgeon, whatever you do. Ridgeon Going to the door with him. I will. And thank you for the knighthood. Goodbye. B.B. Stopping at the door, with the beam in his eye twinkling a little. By the way, who’s your patient? Ridgeon Who? B.B. Downstairs. Charming woman. Tuberculous husband. Ridgeon Is she there still? Emmy Looking in. Come on, Sir Ralph: your wife’s waiting in the carriage. B.B. Suddenly sobered. Oh! Goodbye. He goes out almost precipitately. Ridgeon Emmy: is that woman there still? If so, tell her once for all that I can’t and won’t see her. Do you hear? Emmy Oh, she ain’t in a hurry: she doesn’t mind how long she waits. She goes out. Blenkinsop I must be off, too: every half-hour I spend away from my work costs me eighteenpence. Goodbye, Sir Patrick. Sir Patrick Goodbye. Goodbye. Ridgeon Come to lunch with me some day this week. Blenkinsop I can’t afford it, dear boy; and it would put me off my own food for a week. Thank you all the same. Ridgeon Uneasy at Blenkinsop’s poverty. Can I do nothing for you? Blenkinsop Well, if you have an old frock-coat to spare? you see what would be an old one for you would be a new one for me; so remember the next time you turn out your wardrobe. Goodbye. He hurries out. Ridgeon Looking after him. Poor chap! Turning to Sir Patrick. So that’s why they made me a knight! And that’s the medical profession! Sir Patrick And a very good profession, too, my lad. When you know as much as I know