Speaking of Operations(说起手术)

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Speaking of Operations

by Irvin S. Cobb

Respectfully dedicated to two classes:

Those who have already been operated on Those who have not yet

been operated on

Speaking of Operations

Now that the last belated bill for services professionally rendered has

been properly paid and properly receipted; now that the memory of the

event, like the mark of the stitches, has faded out from a vivid red to a

becoming pink shade; now that I pass a display of adhesive tape in a drug-

store window without flinching--I sit me down to write a little piece about

a certain matter--a small thing, but mine own--to wit, That Operation.

For years I have noticed that persons who underwent pruning or

remodeling at the hands of a duly qualified surgeon, and survived, like to

talk about it afterward. In the event of their not surviving I have no

doubt they still liked to talk about it, but in a different locality. Of all the

readily available topics for use, whether among friends or among strangers,

an operation seems to be the handiest and most dependable. It beats the

Tariff, or Roosevelt, or Bryan, or when this war is going to end, if ever, if

you are a man talking to other men; and it is more exciting even than the

question of how Mrs. Vernon Castle will wear her hair this season, if you

are a woman talking to other women.

For mixed companies a whale is one of the best and the easiest things

to talk about that I know of. In regard to whales and their peculiarities

you can make almost any assertion without fear of successful

contradiction. Nobody ever knows any more about them than you do.

You are not hampered by facts. If someone mentions the blubber of the

whale and you chime in and say it may be noticed for miles on a still day

when the large but emotional creature has been moved to tears by some

great sorrow coming into its life, everybody is bound to accept the

statement. For after all how few among us really know whether a

distressed whale sobs aloud or does so under its breath? Who, with any

certainty, can tell whether a mother whale hatches her own egg her own

self or leaves it on the sheltered bosom of a fjord to be incubated by the

gentle warmth of the midnight sun? The possibilities of the proposition for

purposes of informal debate, pro and con, are apparent at a glance.

The weather, of course, helps out amazingly when you are meeting

people for the first time, because there is nearly always more or less

weather going on somewhere and practically everybody has ideas about it.

Speaking of Operations

The human breakfast is also a wonderfully good topic to start up during

one of those lulls. Try it yourself the next time the conversation seems to

drag. Just speak up in an offhand kind of way and say that you never

care much about breakfast--a slice of toast and a cup of weak tea start you

off properly for doing a hard day's work. You will be surprised to note

how things liven up and how eagerly all present join in. The lady on

your left feels that you should know she always takes two lumps of sugar

and nearly half cream, because she simply cannot abide hot milk, no

matter what the doctors say. The gentleman on your right will be moved

to confess he likes his eggs boiled for exactly three minutes, no more and

no less. Buckwheat cakes and sausage find a champion and oatmeal

rarely lacks a warm defender.

But after all, when all is said and done, the king of all topics is

operations. Sooner or later, wherever two or more are gathered together

it is reasonably certain that somebody will bring up an operation.

Until I passed through the experience of being operated on myself, I

never really realized what a precious conversational boon the subject is,

and how great a part it plays in our intercourse with our fellow beings on

this planet. To the teller it is enormously interesting, for he is not only

the hero of the tale but the rest of the cast and the stage setting as well--the

whole show, as they say; and if the listener has had a similar experience--

and who is there among us in these days that has not taken a nap 'neath the

shade of the old ether cone?--it acquires a doubled value.

"Speaking of operations--" you say, just like that, even though nobody

present has spoken of them; and then you are off, with your new

acquaintance sitting on the edge of his chair, or hers as the case may be

and so frequently is, with hands clutched in polite but painful restraint,

gills working up and down with impatience, eyes brightened with desire,

tongue hung in the middle, waiting for you to pause to catch your breath,

so that he or she may break in with a few personal recollections along the

same line. From a mere conversation it resolves itself into a symptom

symposium, and a perfectly splendid time is had by all.

If an operation is such a good thing to talk about, why isn't it a good

thing to write about, too? That is what I wish to know. Besides, I need

Speaking of Operations

the money. Verily, one always needs the money when one has but

recently escaped from the ministering clutches of the modern hospital.

Therefore I write.

It all dates back to the fair, bright morning when I went to call on a

prominent practitioner here in New York, whom I shall denominate as

Doctor X. I had a pain. I had had it for days. It was not a dependable,

locatable pain, such as a tummyache or a toothache is, which you can put

your hand on; but an indefinite, unsettled, undecided kind of pain, which

went wandering about from place to place inside of me like a strange

ghost lost in Cudjo's Cave. I never knew until then what the personal

sensations of a haunted house are. If only the measly thing could have

made up its mind to settle down somewhere and start light housekeeping I

think should have been better satisfied. I never had such an uneasy

tenant. Alongside of it a woman with the moving fever would be

comparatively a fixed and stationary object.

Having always, therefore, enjoyed perfectly riotous and absolutely

unbridled health, never feeling weak and distressed unless dinner

happened to be ten or fifteen minutes late, I was green regarding

physicians and the ways of physicians. But I knew Doctor X slightly,

having met him last summer in one of his hours of ease in the grand stand

at a ball game, when he was expressing a desire to cut the umpire's throat

from ear to ear, free of charge; and I remembered his name, and

remembered, too, that he had impressed me at the time as being a person

of character and decision and scholarly attainments.

He wore whiskers. Somehow in my mind whiskers are ever

associated with medical skill. I presume this is a heritage of my youth,

though I believe others labor under the same impression.

As I look back it seems to me that in childhood's days all the doctors in

our town wore whiskers.

I recall one old doctor down there in Kentucky who was practically

lurking in ambush all the time. All he needed was a few decoys out in

front of him and a pump gun to be a duck blind. He carried his calomel

about with him in a fruit jar, and when there was cutting job he stropped

his scalpel on his bootleg.

Speaking of Operations

You see, in those primitive times germs had not been invented yet, and

so he did not have to take any steps to avoid them. Now we know that

loose, luxuriant whiskers are unsanitary, because they make such fine

winter quarters for germs; so, though the doctors still wear whiskers, they

do not wear them wild and waving. In the profession bosky whiskers are

taboo; they must be landscaped. And since it is a recognized fact that

germs abhor orderliness and straight lines they now go elsewhere to reside,

and the doctor may still retain his traditional aspect and yet be practically

germproof. Doctor X was trimmed in accordance with the ethics of the

newer school. He had trellis whiskers. So I went to see him at his

offices in a fashionable district, on an expensive side street.

Before reaching him I passed through the hands of a maid and a nurse,

each of whom spoke to me in a low, sorrowful tone of voice, which

seemed to indicate that there was very little hope.

I reached an inner room where Doctor X was. He looked me over,

while I described for him as best I could what seemed to be the matter

with me, and asked me a number of intimate questions touching on the

lives, works, characters and peculiarities of my ancestors; after which he

made me stand up in front of him and take my coat off, and he punched

me hither and yon with his forefinger. He also knocked repeatedly on my

breastbone with his knuckles, and each time, on doing this, would apply

his ear to my chest and listen intently for a spell, afterward shaking his

head in a disappointed way. Apparently there was nobody at home. For

quite a time he kept on knocking, but without getting any response.

He then took my temperature and fifteen dollars, and said it was an

interesting case--not unusual exactly, but interesting--and that it called for

an operation.

From the way my heart and other organs jumped inside of me at that

statement I knew at once that, no matter what he may have thought, the

premises were not unoccupied. Naturally I inquired how soon he meant

to operate. Personally I trusted there was no hurry about it. I was

perfectly willing to wait for several years, if necessary. He smiled at my

ignorance.

"I never operate," he said; "operating is entirely out of my line. I am a

Speaking of Operations

diagnostician."

He was, too--I give him full credit for that. He was a good, keen,

close diagnostician. How did he know I had only fifteen dollars on me?

You did not have to tell this man what you had, or how much. He knew

without being told.

I asked whether he was acquainted with Doctor Y--Y being a person

whom I had met casually at a club to which I belong. Oh, yes, he said,

he knew Doctor Y. Y was a clever man, X said--very, very clever; but Y

specialized in the eyes, the ears, the nose and the throat. I gathered from

what Doctor X said that any time Doctor Y ventured below the thorax he

was out of bounds and liable to be penalized; and that if by any chance he

strayed down as far as the lungs he would call for help and back out as

rapidly as possible.

This was news to me. It would appear that these up-to-date

practitioners just go ahead and divide you up and partition you out among

themselves without saying anything to you about it. Your torso belongs

to one man and your legs are the exclusive property of his brother

practitioner down on the next block, and so on. You may belong to as

many as half a dozen specialists, most of whom, very possibly, are total

strangers to you, and yet never know a thing about it yourself.

It has rather the air of trespass--nay, more than that, it bears some of

the aspects of unlawful entry--but I suppose it is legal. Certainly, judging

by what I am able to learn, the system is being carried on generally. So it

must be ethical. Anything doctors do in a mass is ethical. Almost

anything they do singly and on individual responsibility is unethical.

Being ethical among doctors is practically the same thing as being a

Democrat in Texas or a Presbyterian in Scotland.

"Y will never do for you," said Doctor X, when I had rallied somewhat

from the shock of these disclosures. "I would suggest that you go to

Doctor Z, at such-and-such an address. You are exactly in Z's line. I'll

let him know that you are coming and when, and I'll send him down my

diagnosis."

So that same afternoon, the appointment having been made by

telephone, I went, full of quavery emotions, to Doctor Z's place. As soon

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SpeakingofOperations1SpeakingofOperationsbyIrvinS.CobbRespectfullydedicatedtotwoclasses:ThosewhohavealreadybeenoperatedonThosewhohavenotyetbeenoperatedonSpeakingofOperations2Nowthatthelastbelatedbillforservicesprofessionallyrenderedhasbeenproperlypaidandproperlyreceipted;nowthatthememoryoftheevent,l...

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