“Well, you see, there’s the high temperature—104 in some cases—and there’s the inflamed throat, and there’s headache. What do you say?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Porter; you must know whether it is an infectious fever or not. If you don’t know, we’ll send to Southampton for Hutchinson.”
“Of course, you can have him if you like. I judge more by temperature than anything—the thermometer is a safer guide than the pulse, as you know. I took their temperatures this morning before I went to church: only one case in which there was improvement—all the others decidedly worse; very strongly developed cases of malignant fever—typhus or typhoid—which, as you know, by Jenner’s differentiation of the two forms—”
“For God’s sake, man, don’t talk to me as if I were a doctor, and had your ghoulish relish of disease! If you have the slightest doubt as to treatment, send for Hutchinson.”
He took a sheaf of telegraph-forms from the stand in front of him, and began to write his message while he was talking. He had made up his mind that Dr. Hutchinson must come to see these humble sufferers, and to investigate the cause of evil. He had taken such pains to create a healthy settlement, had spared no expense; and for fifteen years, from the hour of his succession until now, all had gone well with him. And now there was fever in the land, fever in the air breathed by those two beloved ones, daughter and wife.
“I have been so happy; my life has been cloudless, save for one dark memory,” he said to himself, covering his face with his hands as he leaned with his elbows on the table, while Mr. Porter expatiated upon the cases in the village, and on fever in general.
“I have tested the water in all the wells—perfectly pure. There can be nothing amiss with the milk, for all my patients are on Mrs. Greswold’s list, and are getting their milk from your own dairy. The drainage is perfection—yet here we have an outbreak of fever, which looks remarkably like typhoid?”
“Why not say at once that it is typhoid?”
“The symptoms all point that way.”
“You say there can be nothing amiss with the milk. You have not analysed it, I suppose?”