“Well, we can put on some fresh coal,” was the Doctor’s answer. “How old are you?”
“Forty-six, Doctor!”
“A mere child!” the doctor replies, and the merry twinkle in his eyes brings an answering smile to the face of the sufferer. The Doctor himself was fifty-five years old in February, 1920.
So many fishermen get what are called “water-whelps” or “water-pups,”—pustules on the forearm due to the abrasion of the skin by more or less infected clothing. Cleaning the cod and cutting up fish produces many ugly cuts and piercings and consequent sores, and there is always plenty of putrefying matter about a fishing-stage to infect them. So that a very common phenomenon is a great swelling on the forearm—and an agonizing, sleep-destroying one it may be—where pus has collected and is throbbing for the lance. It is a joy to witness the immediate relief that comes from the cutting, and as the iodine is applied and deft fingers bandage the wound the patient tries to find words to tell of his thankfulness.
One afternoon just as the Doctor thought there was a lull in the proceedings four women and a man came over the rail at once. The first woman had a “bad stummick”; the second wanted “turble bad” to have her tooth “hauled”; the third had “a sore neck, Miss” (thus addressing Mrs. Grenfell); the fourth woman had something “too turble to tell”; the man merely wanted to see the Doctor on general principles.
Here is a bit of dialogue with a woman who couldn’t sleep.
“What do you do when you don’t sleep?”
“I bide in the bed.”
“Do you do any work?”
“No, sir.”