Evening star., 1937-01-31
Bv Williap Il. Bell, L.
YUST go in there and take your
coats of, and the nurse will
give VIII robes"

ny " ttttHm II. Detts J1s
6 YUsT go in there and take your
coats of, and the nurse will
give you robes"
~ The young house surgeon
indicated a door marked, Doctors
Room"
which one of you is going to use
your hands," said nurse with an
armful of white garments.
HE is" said, pointing to my pho
tographer.
well, you take this one and you
take this one. Here are your masks"
We went into the doctors dressing
room. A doctor was seated on bench,
stripped to his underclothes. putting
on a pair of trimmed tennis
shoes. Plainly, this was the chief
surgeon, the star of the performance
we were about to watch. He was older
than the others We had seen and wore
spectacles Of sort that suggested au-
thority.
That's DR.. W." whispered the
house surgeon. "He's tops in these
parts"
IF that photographer faints on me
I'll have him carried out of here and
dragged to the morgue," said the
Great Man.
Every one Snickered.
The photographer put on a waist
length gown with short sleeves. Mine
was sleeveless. It came to my knees.
White caps next. The masks were
difficult and We had to be helped.
A nurse took us into the operating
room.
You can stand here between the
sinks until they get started; then you
can 60 over there by the anesthesia
tanks" she instructed.
There were four anesthesia tanks,
cylinders shoulder high. The one for
oxygen was tipped with green paint.
Red for the ethylene. Blue for nitrous
oxide. The carbon dioxide cylinder
was plain. Ether dubbed in a glass
tube attached to the anesthetic de-
vice.
THE patient lay quietly on the table,
blinking into the big light above.
Pretty soon one of the anesthetists
put the inhaling device over her nose.
It looked like glass cup with thick
rubber rim.
The small balconies upstairs began
to fill with medical students. There
were three girls.
nno y,ryrco cfrofnIaJ r,,t1I1a, rvIo,,ae
while another showed her hands into
them. The doctors chatted in the
wash room. For 10 minutes they
scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed.
up to inches above the elbow, !"
said a typewriter slip of washing
regulations pasted on the tile wall.
The doctors came out of the wash
room. their bare arms dripping. They
wore white jackets and trousers.
Nurses helped them into sterile gowns
which enveloped them from neck to
ankle, billowing like parachutes.
The young house surgeon turned his
masked face toward the students
above.
This patient" he said, "is a white
female, 46 years old Entered the hos
pital about week ago complaining Of
indigestion and some pain ."
white female. 46 years old 1" -"
Who was she-this woman for whom
all this surgical skill had been mus
tered? A wealthy aristocrat, perhaps?
They had said the chief surgeon was
about the best that could be obtained.
His bill for the hour and a half's
work he was about to do probably
would run into four figures.
You would have thought that, to
see the care that was being exercised
within those four white walls of glis-
tening tile. You would have thought
that had you not known that this was
Gallinger Municipal Hospital; that
the woman was a charity case, a
pauper. These doctors, from the big
fellow to the newest inferno, down
below there, working so swiftly and
so dexterously to make her life longer
and happier were not making l cent
OF profit from this operation. Yet
they gave to this poor, wretched crea-
ture all the benefits derived from
years of training and study, and they
gave with the same unstinting appli-
cation of the finest medical science