A Surgeon in Arms

by R. J. Manion

"Well, do you know, my dear colonel, that castor oil is a wonderful remedy, marvelous, almost miraculous. Can you believe it on my sick parade a week ago today there were seventy-five sick who came. I have given them nothing but castor oil, and so many are cured that today only seventeen came to see me. It's really an astonishing remedy. Wouldn't you like to take an ounce of it, sir?"

"No, damn you, I wouldn't," roared the colonel, as he made his exit.

I was sitting in his tent one day when a lieutenant came in to see him, saying that ten years before he had broken his clavicle—"collar bone,"—and that over the old fracture he was having so much pain at times that he feared he would have to get a month off.

"Ah, yes, my dear Mr. Blank. Would you kindly divest yourself of your clothes till I examine the shoulder?" and the half of his face on my side screwed itself up into an exaggerated wink, which meant to me that he considered that this officer was trying to "put one over." He probably knew him!

When the officer had stripped, Capt. Smith asked him to show the exact spot of tenderness, and the lieutenant put his finger with exactitude on a certain point. Captain Smith touched the spot with his fingers, the officer exclaiming, "Oh, that hurts, doc," and drawing back in pain.

"Ah, yes, I'm sorry, but I'll be careful, Mr. Blank," and he examined gently the shoulder, arm and chest, but always finished the examination by pushing in fairly hard with his finger and saying, "Now that's where it hurts, Mr. Blank?" And Mr. Blank would each time cringe with the pain of the touch. He repeated this again and again, but I noticed that each time he came back to the tender spot he chose a point an inch or so from that which he had chosen the last time. Finally he had poor Blank saying, "Yes, that's the spot," when the spot touched was nearly six inches from the original sensitive point. At last the doctor said, very seriously:

"Yes, yes, Mr. Blank, that painful condition must be attended to. It is a strange condition, don't you know, for as I go on examining it, the tenderness shifts about a great deal, and I feel sure that with a little rubbing it may be driven out altogether. Now this liniment is the very thing, the very thing. Yes, yes, twice daily, night and morning. Good afternoon, my dear Blank. Don't fail to come back if it troubles you any more;" and Blank went out looking a bit sheepish, while the doctor turned to me again with his face wearing that exaggerated wink. Then he continued, as if he were just carrying on an interrupted conversation, "You know, Manion, some of these officers are exceedingly troublesome, exceedingly so, when they happen to swing the lead, for one must appear to have the greatest consideration for them. Now I have one extremely interesting case of laryngitis in one of the officers. It goes every now and then to the extent of complete loss of voice. Troublesome condition, for he cannot give his orders to his men, and to hurry him back into condition I have sent him twice to the hospital. Now, though this officer's courage is absolutely unquestioned, I find myself at times wondering if it may not be just that general fed-up feeling that we all get rather than laryngitis that affects him. Captain Thompson is a great friend of mine which makes it all the more difficult, but you know, my dear chap, really it's so easy to quit speaking aloud, and just whisper instead. I wonder does he talk in his sleep? By Jove, that would be interesting. I must make inquiries.

"But," he continued, "I told him off a bit a couple of nights ago. One of our companies was putting on a raid at daybreak, and the officer in charge of the raid is not overburdened with nerve. One-half hour before the raid he started to groan, when we were all in headquarters dugout together, and said he had a very severe pain in his stomach or bowels. Though I doubted the pain, I examined him carefully, and finding no real cause for it I allowed him to carry on, and, to do him justice, he went over the top like a man and did his bit in the raid as well as anyone could have done.

"But just after I had examined him Thompson stepped up familiarly to me and said: 'Do you really think, Smith, that So-and-so did have a pain?' 'Damn you, Thompson,' I replied, 'what right have you to ask me such a question?' 'Oh, come now, Smith, really, do you think he did have a pain?' 'Well, frankly, Thompson,' I answered, in a low, confidential tone, 'I am losing so much of my faith in humanity, don't you know, that I find myself doubting if you have any laryngitis when you lose your voice!' And with a good-natured burst of laughter he left me. But I somehow feel that he won't have laryngitis again for some time!

"But honestly, Manion, my great surprise always has been, and still is, not that so many try to get out of the line, but that in spite of the dangers and hardships 95 per cent. of officers and men do their hard, dangerous, trying jobs with a smile and without complaint. How very little cowardice there is in the world!"