“We’re all right,” she told him. “I wanted to ask you about the Knapps. You know I’m sort of related to Mr. Knapp. I’ve been wondering what you really thought about him ... whether he’ll ever be cured, I mean.”
The doctor noticed that her voice trembled as she spoke. What a good-natured creature she was, taking other people’s troubles so to heart.
He hesitated. It was not at all his habit to talk about his patients to outsiders, least of all to any such chatter-box as Mrs. Farnham. But he had thought several times lately that, if Lester Knapp were to make any progress, he would need to start a campaign to dry up the gushing spring of family sympathy. He knew all about that sort of campaign from much experience, but he was never resigned to the necessity for it. “Darn families and their sympathy!” he often said impatiently. “They ‘poor-Charlie’ and ‘poor-Mary’ more sick people into their graves than we doctors do.”
He had long suspected that well-meaning Mrs. Farnham did a good deal of “poor-Lestering” at the Knapps. Maybe this was a chance to head her off, to get her mind started along a new track. Of course he must remember to use the simplest, most elementary language with her. She was really almost an illiterate.
“I’ll tell you, Mrs. Farnham, just what I think about the case. As near as I can make out, the effusion of blood within the spinal canal has been safely absorbed, or nearly so. There seems to be no displacement or injury to the spinal bones; there is no wasting away of the muscles as would be the case if the spinal cord were injured. There is, I believe, good reason to hope that the loss of power in his legs is a sequel of organic conditions which have now passed away. The case now needs a psychic treatment rather than a mechanical.”
“Organic?” said Mrs. Farnham, faintly. The word made her think of church.
“I mean that in my opinion no physical lesion now exists in spite of the abnormal sensations which Mr. Knapp still feels. We must try toning up the general health, overcoming the shock to the nervous system. As soon as the weather permits, I shall try heliotherapy.”
Mrs. Farnham caught her breath.
“That is, treatment of the affected areas by direct exposure to sunlight. They have done wonderful things in France with that treatment in just this sort of trouble. And of course at any time any sort of sudden nervous stimulus might do the business. You see, Mrs. Farnham, Mr. Knapp’s case is now like that of the people who are cured at Lourdes, or by Coué. The very same sort of phenomenon.”
“I don’t understand very well,” said Mattie humbly. “What I wanted to know was ...” her voice faltered, “do you think you can cure him?”