Physican Heal Thyself

[Steven Hunley]

Physician Heal Thyself

by

Steven Hunley


Dr. Bell was busy shuffling papers. Dr. Frobisher was doing the same. How they hated grading midterm exams. Frobisher was getting more upset by the minute.

“Just look at this one, Bell. Just look at it! This essay answer reads more like a penny dreadful than a proper medical answer.”

“Doyle again?”

“Who else?”

“Let me see it. It’s a standard question. What are the causes of appendicitis?”

He scanned the exam with great interest, pausing here and there, smiling slyly, then continuing to the bitter end.

“With a not-so-standard answer, I’m afraid,” remarked Frobisher, twisting his handle-bar mustache nervously.

“I see what you mean. But I like the part where he wrote,

‘The cause of appendicitis relates to blockage of the inside of the appendix, commonly known as the lumen. The terrible blockage reminds me of the blockage of the tea tax by British colonists in Boston during the revolutionary war with England. They actually dressed up as Indians and dumped tea in Boston harbor! This increased pressure, devastating in its effects, can lead to impaired blood flow, and finally, in the most dangerous case scenario, full of breathtaking drama at every step, to inflammation. If the blockage is not treated immediately, things can go horribly wrong, and gangrene and rupture (breaking or tearing) of the appendix can result.’

“I disagree Bell, I don’t like it at all. It’s not medical enough. Not enough Greek terminology to my way of thinking. Not up to snuff. And speaking of snuff would you care for some?”

He fingered a gold filigree Castellani snuff box.

“Thank you, no. My nose is running enough the way it is. I think I’m coming down with something."

Bell drew a linen handkerchief out of his pocket and looked outside with his piercing grey eyes. The blue sky was threaded with white wispy clouds. He missed nothing, not a detail. Frobisher was definitely acting distraught.

“I don’t know what to do with the lad, Bell. I really don’t.”

Just then the ivy-clad bell tower of Edinburgh University tolled four times, and a dozen white pigeons took flight and circled. The hand-blown window panes of the office gave a beautiful yet distorted view of the square below with it’s carefully tended lawns and brick walkways. Frobisher took out his gold watch and gave it a look.

“Frobisher, is that a new watch?”

“It’s not just a watch Old Boy, it’ a Patek Philippe perpetual calendar moon phase minute repeater chronograph.”

“What a mouthful! You are fond of valuable things aren’t you?”

Frobisher secreted it back in his vest pocket and blushed.

“Let’s talk about this further, and break now for tea. But really Bell, something must be done.”

Bell blew his narrow aquiline nose and carefully folded his handkerchief, placing it in his pocket while taking his coat off the rack. Frobisher held open the door. Tea was always a good time for discussing students, current world events, how the sun never set on the empire, and most importantly, cricket matches. They walked down the dark oaken stairway. The railing was polished smooth by thousands of student’s hands, hands that would later heal thousands of others. That is, if they passed their medical exams.

The last thing Bell said was,

“Frobisher, if Doyle is giving you that much trouble you can always turn the young man over to me.”


to be continued...

[Delta40]

A nice introduction to what will no doubt be an interesting read. Am I mistaken that this is Conan Doyle's fiction as Joseph Bell's clerk?

[Steven Hunley]

Delta, yes! Joseph Bell was a facinating man! Queen Victoria's private physician when she was in Scotland. And even more interesting that Robert Louis Stevenson studied law at Edinburgh University just one year after Doyle graduated. What if they crossed paths?

If Doyle went back to see an old professor he was fond of, they might have crossed paths in the student union. They say Doyle told stories to groups of students informally. Sounds like a story idea to me. Not everybody starts off to be a writer from the start.

I just love both of these authors I guess. Good stories is a sickness with me.

[Delta40]

A very palatable sickness as far as I can see....

[Delta40]

Upon a second reading, I'm sort of hoping there will be some difference of opinion between Frobisher and Bell. The possibilities here are endless!

[CM Sackett]

Mr. Hunley,

In the hands of most, the pen (or keyboard, as the case may be) is, too often, merely a dispenser of ink. From this, my first scanning of your work, it is most definitely transformed into a crafter of Windows... through which the vistas of what you see in your mind become enjoyably clear to others.

In other words ~ well done, sir. Very well done.
CM Sackett

[Steven Hunley]

***
Doyle’s room was a mess. The beds was unmade, various papers were scattered her and there, and a single sock lay under the table where he and Mulvanney sat at their books. Lord only knows where the other sock was. Grey’s Anatomy lie open between them, and the only sounds were the scratching of pens on paper and the Seth Thomas clock ticking on the mantle. Bars of light streaming down through the windows were speckled by gold twirling dust.

Finally Doyle threw down his pen and remarked,

“There’s too much to remember! I’ve had it! Had it up to here,” he motioned his fingers to his neck.

“Me too!” cried Mulvanney, and cast his pen like a dart into the table top where it stuck and shuddered like an arrow shot by Robin Hood into an oak. Other holes nearby showed he’d been practicing on the sly.

“It’s just not that there’s so much information,” Mulvanney continued. “It’s that it’s in Latin!”

“Yes, I concur. A foreign language at best.”

“And a dead one at that!”

Mulvanney took out his pocket knife and sat on his bed to re-sharpened his pencil.

“As dead as one of Frobisher’s cadavers,” noted Doyle, checking the mirror for the length of his mustache.

“How do you think it looks?”

“First rate Doyle, first rate. Pure upper-class-man type of mustache. It will look perfect during graduation. Makes you look older and distinguished.”

“I won’t feel so distinguished if I fail.”

“You mean there’s a chance...”

“If I don’t pass the finals, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“It’s not your fault Doyle. It’s Frobisher’s fault. He lectures at the ceiling. It’s those damnable half-frame glasses. He never has eye contact with the students. Never! That’s why he caught us falling asleep last week.”

“I wish there was a way I could transfer out, but it’s too late in the semester for that. I’d have to go to the Dean with some wild excuse.”

“It would take an act of God.”

Doyle walked over to his bed and got down on his knees. He placed his elbows on the mattress and folded his hands together. Mulvanney knew what was coming and smiled. It wasn’t the first time his roommate acted silly. He had such a vivid imagination. Doyle crossed himself and whispered solemnly while looking up,

“Please Lord, if it isn’t any bother, deliver me from Frobisher and grant me success in my studies.”

The bars of golden light from the window played over his head. Only the clock ticked it’s sound, and besides that it was as quiet as a cathedral.
Mulvanney was about to break the silence with laughter when an envelope appeared inch by inch from under the hallway door. He picked it up.

“It’s addressed to you, Old Man.”

Doyle unfolded the note and read,

“Dear Mr. Doyle,

You are hereby informed that you are being transferred. You are to be my new assistant. Please report to me Monday and be ready for work.

Respectfully,

Professor Joseph Bell as per recommendation of Professor Frobisher.”

The two medical students gave each other a look.

Their usual pastime on Sundays was chatting up girls at the local pub and punting on the Water of Leith while it wound its way thorough quiet green ribbons of wood lands. But that particular Sunday found them both attending mass. The girls would have to wait.

***

to be continued...

[AuntShecky]

This is shaping up to be a good one, Steven. You seem to have captured what we imagine the conversational style of the era might have been. Not only that, this one contains the flashes of humor and satire your friends have come to expect in your offerings. The dialogue doesn't slow down the pace at all and the story moves along quite nicely.

Best of all, the author keeps himself out of it.

Great job!

[DocHeart]

Smooth, readable and witty, as always. Eagerly awaiting the next part.

Thanks for continuing to share, Steven.

Regards

[Steven Hunley]

The next day at eight Doyle was sitting in an over-stuffed red leather armchair waiting for Bell. Frobisher had the day off. Doyle sat in their office. It was the first day of autumn and it arrived with a cold snap which Doyle compensated for by buttoning up his white lab coat. Still, feeling a chill, he noticed the window that led to the roof was opened a crack. He looked out and saw that the gardeners were neglected the trees, as the one nearest the building hug over the roof with its branches.

“Perfect way for a burglar to get in,” he reasoned. “But then again, what would they take? There’s nothing of value about.”

He scanned the room from right to left and found out he was mistaken.

Bell’s side was neat as a pin. Sparse or Spartan was the word to described it. A desk, a chair, a coat rack and a filing cabinet, all neat and tidy.

Frobisher’s looked a different story. It was a wonder he hadn’t noticed it from the start. The desk was the same. Everything else was different. On the corner was a large silver bell with chased Sanskrit letters, most likely from a Tibetan temple. The pen holder held expensive gold-nibbed ink-pens next to a silver ink-bottle holder. Rose-scented red sealing wax and a silver seal with an ivory pommel rested nearby.
Behind the desk on the wall was a priceless Buddhist Tanka, a scroll with intricate symmetrical pictures describing the life of the Buddha. The only other he’d seen hung in the British Museum. On the wall facing that were commendations from his old outfit in India, and another frame packed with gold and silver medals pinned to black velvet. In a smaller frame hung a little bronze cross made out of a cannon captured at Sevastopol, bearing the proud inscription For Valor, from the Afghan wars. Doyle hadn’t noticed them at first.

“Obviously, Frobisher is more than just whiskers and surface. So much for my powers of observation.”

He thumped his scull with his thumb.

On the filing cabinet was a brass incense burner. The joss stick had burned out long ago but the sent of patchouli still hung in the air. A long column of ash lay dead on the floor.

“Hello, what’s this?”

Near the ash was a small empty custard dish almost hidden by the cabinet leg. Doyle remembered the girth of Frobisher’s belly and laughed.

“Professor Frobisher is so conceited about his figure he probably hides his deserts from Professor Bell. I’d be surprised if Bell hasn’t noticed. They say he’s sharp as a tack.”

At least that was his reputation. Mulvanney had supplied the particulars. He was a brilliant diagnostician. Private surgeon to Queen Victoria when she was in Scotland. Written various medical books, quick as a whip. Etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.

“I can’t imagine what drew his attention to me.”

The door opened swiftly and in walked the doctor, thin and dark, gray-haired and narrow-nosed, with piercing gray eyes that read his students like so many books.

“You’re Doyle, I deduce, as I never presume.”

“Yes Sir, please to meet you.”

They shook hands like any two gentlemen.

“Come, we’re off to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.”

The two walked with such a quick pace all you saw were two lab coats fluttering in the wind like laundry flying off a doctor’s clothes line in a storm. It was as if they both had become unpinned.

Doyle started patting his pockets and reported,

“Doctor Bell, I must go back. I’ve left my stethoscope behind.”

“Tut tut Doyle, You have all the instruments you need right now. Eyes and ears to see and hear and memory to record the senses. Such are the implements of a successful diagnosis.”

The next thing he knew they were at the hospital. Bell handed his student a notebook and asked for the next patient in line. He wasted no time on formalities and walked straight away, in through the dark oak double doors marked with a brass plate that read Examination Theatre. Doyle located a rumpled up man in the outpatient clinic and delivered him within minutes. Bell was already addressing the class. Toomey, McDougal, Harwich and McLean were in their seats taking notes. Burroughs sat at the top of the tiered seats.

Bell was something of a showman, and here he was in his element. Doyle ushered the patient to the center of the floor. He was forty if he was a day, balding, and trying to make up for it with side-whiskers and walked with an irregular gate.

Bell drew Doyle aside and whispered,

“Observe carefully, deduce shrewdly, and confirm with hard evidence. We’ll teach you The Method. And by all means take notes!”

He gave the rumpled man a glance up and down then took his hands saying,

“Let’s give you a wee look.”

He held the man’s hands in his and turned them over. Then he stepped back and said loud enough for the students to hear,

“I see you've been across the west links today.”

“How in the world did you know that?”

“I see by the red clay on the soles of your boots. It’s the only part of Edinburgh where you’ll find a fine clay like that. You’re a sailor out of Portsmouth. And by the way Old Fellow, how is Krishna O'Hooligan doing? I haven’t seen him in over a year.”

The man took on a puzzled look. “How do you know I’ve been in O'Hooligan's place?”

“Because the tattoo on your forearm has an anchor with a distinctive blue-lined chain. Only Bridges and Sons of the Salty Dog Tattoo Parlor in Portsmouth do chain work like that and O'Hooligan's is only two doors away. One either gets drunk there before hand to deaden the pain, or afterwards to celebrate the tattooing. On the other arm is a Maori design which was picked up in New Zealand if I’m not mistaken.”

The man nodded. He could only nod at this point, words having failed him.

“But enough of this sea-going travelogue. There’s a medical diagnosis afoot. What’s wrong with him Burroughs?”

“He has hip problems, Sir.”

Dr. Bell took out his handkerchief and coughed, then continued,

“Ah, no, but that’s not his real problem. His real problem is he’s got chronic alcoholism. Look at the rubicund nose, the florid face. And, since you must make a complete diagnosis, you will notice, sticking out of his right coat pocket, a pint bottle of rum. You must always verify your conclusions."


to be continued...

[Steven Hunley]

These incredible diagnosises went on for a week. Doyle was dumbfounded at Bell’s attention to detail and his analytical mind. His conclusions were accurate in almost every case. It wracked Doyle’s brain and set him thinking. Not just during class or at the infirmary either, but at all hours of the night and day.


Doyle could not sleep. He felt restless. Too many ideas crowded his mind. He got out of bed and put on his clothes and his shoes and coat and left the confines of his room. Out into the night for a wander. The moon was full but the clouds played havoc with it’s light, plunging the scene through extremes. One moment a patch of pavement lay in darkness and shadow, the next moment it glittered with sparkling blue moonlight.

It was two in the morning and no one was was there but Doyle. He walked between the buildings of brick and stone, past piles of bicycles stacked against the wrought-iron fences and gates. Then across George Square. Each building had a past. History hung heavy in Edinburgh. The castle with its’ cannons dominated the heights of the city like an armed phantom highwayman dominating a road.

It prompted Doyle to say to himself, “Stand and deliver, or is it your money or your life?”

Threading himself between more bricks and stones and wrought-iron fences found him below the the faculty offices. He wondered what was wrong with his mentor. Bell referred to his illness as a common cold. Yet its symptoms hung on and hung on. There seemed no end to them. Bell tried to ignore them and played them off as if they were nothing, but Doyle, in contact with his mentor on a daily basis, began to add them up.

On Monday he noted Bell's watery eyes and cough. On Tuesday it was his difficulty breathing. On Wednesday his sneezing drove him near madness with it’s frequency, and so on. So the handkerchief, always the handkerchief.

“There must be something I can do, but what?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement and heard the rustle of leaves. A shadow, though one could hardly call a thing a shadow if it was white, flashed up a tree and over the roof top like a small insignificant ghost and was gone.

“Oh, I need more sleep. It's seeing things, I am.”

He promptly returned to his room and warm bed where the only sounds were the tips of stray branches tapping against his window pane and Mulvanney’s sonorous snoring. Then he fell into a deep dream-filled sleep.

***

The next day found Doyle back in the office, alone, waiting for Bell to accompany him to class as was their habit. He sat in the leather armchair as usual and everything seemed exactly the same at first glance. There was one exception. Doyle had changed, and his attention to detail was more acute. This time, when he scanned the room, he noticed that the empty custard dish had moved a few inches. He got down on his knees for a closer look. A sort of scum was on the bottom. Smelling it, he recognized cream, not custard.

“Most unusual.”

And the leg of the cabinet, now only inches away from his face, showed fine vertical scratches.

He thought they might have been caused when the furniture was moved, but the other leg was untouched. Turning around to get up, he noticed another detail he would have never seen while sitting in the chair. A few inches from the floor, the leather had tiny pinpricks dotting the surface, dozens of them, and like the leg of the cabinet, on one side only. Then he noticed a white hair on the red Persian carpet, another one of Frobisher’s “Fine Things”. Men who would be aghast at someone stealing from an English church were paying people to loot treasures from Islamic mosques. That wasn’t uncommon. But this one was purchased by Frobisher from Ziegler and Co., of Manchester, and cost a pretty penny.

“There’s another symptom. Bell is losing his hair! By Jove, what’s wrong with the man?”

There were others on the carpet, and a trail of them led to the wall under the window.

“Analysis is what’s needed here.”

Folding a piece of paper into a packet, he placed a few of the hairs inside.

Just then Dr.Bell opened the door.

“I say Doyle, what are you doing?”

It was most embarrassing, having your instructor find you on your hands and knees on the floor, but Doyle recovered quickly replying,

“I dropped half a crown, and it rolled under the cabinet. Here it is now,” and stood up. “I need my mother to sew up this hole in my pocket.”

Bell was satisfied and too busy taking stacks of papers off his desk, in too much of a hurry to notice that there was nothing in his hand. On the other side of the coin, Doyle noticed something on Bell’s hand, a discoloration, the start of a rash.

They left the office and almost ran to the infirmary, Bell with his hands full of papers and Doyle with his brain full of clues.

The end is next!...

[Steven Hunley]

The next morning at breakfast Mulvaney had coffee and a thoughtful look on his face. The coffee worried Doyle, as did the look it engendered. Coffee always made Mulvaney think too much.

“You know Doyle, I’d like a pet. Something colorful, something lively, something with wit to keep me amused and liven up our dorm. A Scarlet Macaw, yes that’s it. I want a parrot so bad I can taste it.”

“Mulvaney you must be losing your mind. You want a parrot? With their endless chatter and piles of seeds all over the floor? You are aware, they don’t allow pets on campus!”

“Oh yes, I forgot.”

“No dogs or cats or birds or anything. Remember last year when Nicolson’s Burmese python escaped and got into the plumbing? He was expelled straight away. My bum refused to get near the toilets for weeks.”

Mulvaney took on a somber look.

“Yes, I remember, now that you mention it. I can’t think of what came over me.”

“Lack of sleep and too much studying, that’s what. Have you a lab this morning?”

“Every morning but Sunday, Old Boy.”

“I have something I want you to check out.”

Doyle pulled out a packet from his coat pocket.

“This is a sample of hair from Dr. Bell. I think he’s losing it. It needs to be checked for toxins and such, can you do it?”

“Of course, for Joe Bell, in an instant. You’ll have the results by dinner.”

Classes lasted all day and that night the two met for their evening meal. Mulvaney took his knife and his fork in his hand a started on a leg of lamb. Doyle was already on his desert. His hungry roommate didn’t even look up when he said,

“The hair was pretty interesting Doyle, but I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree. There’s no toxins to find. You said they came from Bell’s head?”

“That’s it.”

“Impossible, Old Man. For one thing they were too long for Bell and for another, they weren’t even human. The color matches, but nothing else.”

“Not human? Look up at me will you?”

Their eyes met and locked.

“Cat hair, Good Fellow, long strands of cat hair, that’s what they were. Packed with flea eggs and dander galore.”

Doyle dropped his spoon in his pudding, got up and left, suddenly needing fresh air. He walked to the commons where he could breathe.

The facts he considered.

The coughing, the sneezing, the rash on his hand. Always out of breath. His office, the entire office where he spent hours on his notes and papers. The last few days, every detail, all the details. He walked across George Square. If he could only sleep. All the endless studying was getting to him. His various walks in the night, and my God, he was here again, walking along under Bell and Frobisher’s offices. His thoughts raced over the last few hours, then minutes, then seconds. Ghosts, Bell, Frobisher, Fine Things, barking up the wrong tree. Pacing back and forth under the very tree he’d seen from the office window, noticing a foul smell. It was near. Where was it coming from? Was it his shoe? By Jove, it was his shoe!

Suddenly he stopped. You have to be still to grow crystals and a crystalline thought was growing in his brain.

Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.

He had the answer.

He found a twig and cleaned off his shoe and then wiped it a few times on the grass. If you’re going to burst into your mentor’s office with a complete diagnosis without an appointment and run riot, it was best not to do it while stinking.

Doyle was up the oak staircase and knocking on the office door in a flash.

“Come.”

Bell was sitting behind his desk. Frobisher was digging in his file cabinet and looked up.

“Just came by to see how the cold was doing, Dr. Bell.”

“Same as usual,” remarked Frobisher. “He’s been sneezing all day.”

Bell nodded agreement.

“He’s silent because his throat’s been scratchy too. I advised him to save it for lectures tomorrow.”

“Yes Sir, I agree. He should save it. But better yet, we should cure it.”

“Well of course Doyle, but it’s not as easy as all that.”

Frobisher did a bit of snuff and snapping his box shut continued,

“Doyle, this malady Dr. Bell is suffering from is one of those mystery illnesses.”

Doyle stood like a rock, looked at each of them in turn, and announced,

“Then I’m sure you two gentlemen will allow me to solve their mystery.”

Doyle took the ruler off Dr. Bell’s desk and holding it with one hand, began tapping it in the palm of his other hand while pacing the floor.

“First, gentlemen, the symptoms. Rash, scratchy throat, sneezing, out of breath, tearing eyes, and so forth. But then there’s environment to be considered. Dusty office overlooking the campus where on the surface everything looks normal but on closer examination, things are not as they seem.

“Not as they seem?”

“Hidden things going on...things I was unable to account for until the lab work came back.”

Now he had both their attentions held hostage.

“Lab work?” scratched Bell weakly.

“The scientific analysis of the evidence brought it all together, Dr. Bell. But I’m not one hundred percent sure unless Dr. Frobisher gives us just one more bit of information.”

“I’ll gladly add my expertise Doyle. Anything to help a student who shows promise.”

Doyle sat down in the red leather arm chair and put the ruler back on the desk. He placed his fingers together like a temple of science.

“You were in the Afghan Wars, were you not? And while on leave, tramped through Kashmir and in addition, though you never mentioned it to any of your superior officers, visited the Forbidden Kingdom of Tibet?

“Why, yes. It’s all quite true.”

Frobisher took a seat behind his desk.

“Your officer’s commission, and success in your lucrative practice and teaching career has left you decently outfitted financially, and allowed you to develop a taste for, as you call them,
your “Fine Things.”

“I suppose one could say that.”

His cheeks took on a pinkish glow.

Bell whispered, “Like Carroll’s Alice, things get curiouser and curiouser.”

“One might say then you enjoy collecting fine and exotic things from the Himalayas?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But I don’t see what this has to do with Dr. Bell.”

“I put it too you Dr. Frobisher, that your collecting has everything to do with Dr. Bell and his condition. Although Dr. Bell is a brilliant diagnostician, he needs one more trait or skill to make his most important diagnosis and cure himself of his malady. Objectivity. Dr. Bell is having trouble seeing the forest for the trees, to use a cliche.”

Bell’s pupils dilated and his gray eyes became sharper than ever. Hawk-like at this very moment.

Doyle reached over and picked up the ruler. He started near his feet.

“These needle-like pin-pricks on the leg of this chair. The scratches on the cabinet leg.”

He pointed.

“The love of “Fine Things” Exotic art-like rare things from the Himalayas. The cream left in the custard dish.”

Frobisher looked down. He pushed the dish under the cabinet with the toe of his shoe but was minutes too late. Sweat formed on his brow.

“I really don’t see...”

“But it’s Dr.Bell who never sees, not the forest for the trees! My goodness, I sound like a poet! You’re keeping a secret from your colleague in medicine, aren’t you, Dr. Frobisher?”

“Well...I...”

Just then a white Himalayan kitten poked its head under the window sill and mewed. It jumped down on the Persian rug, sauntered silently across its surface like a ghost, approached Frobisher and sprang in his lap. Frobisher turned a brighter red than ever before.

“I should have mentioned the trail of cat hairs to the window. It’s an allergy to cats Dr. Bell. That’s what you’ve got.”

“Frobisher, why didn’t you tell me?”

“They’re against the rules, Old Boy. I didn’t want to have you as my partner in crime in case I was found out. The professional implications were horrendous. Professors setting bad examples of behavior. Bad form and all that.”

Bell took out his handkerchief and blew his nose a final time. He put it away and looked at Doyle and sighed,

“Doyle, well done. I needed a mirror for a diagnosis and you were that mirror. Doctor to doctor, I congratulate you.”

He got up, took a step towards Doyle and shook his hand.

“You mean I’m passing?!”

“If that’s what you deduce Doyle, make your own conclusions.”

Bell opened the door and watched Doyle walk to the head of the broad dark oak stairway.

Doyle looked back at his mentor as the light of the office streamed out into the dim hallway, marking a golden rectangle of learning on the floor.

Joe Bell was lit from behind, the edge of his gray hair glowing, his eyes like a hawk while attending to his student.

Doyle took his leave having one final image. It wasn’t the dark stairway or the dim hall or the head of his professor.

It was the embarrassed gray-whiskered old-rusty-medaled campaigner holding his expensive long-haired cat in his lap.

He was a study in scarlet.

©Steven Hunley2011