“Indeed I do, but now for the business.”
“Oh—but please tell me about the operation first!” Nathalie was afraid the doctor intended to put her off. “Tell me, will Dick really be good and strong again after he has the operation?”
The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes and then said slowly, “Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe that if your brother could have that operation he would be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had not happened.”
“But what makes the operation necessary, and what would you do to him?” she insistently demanded.
“Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we would do to him. We shall not make hash of him—”
“Oh, Doctor!” exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.
“But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg and replace it with a new one. I saw an infected finger joint removed the other day and replaced with a joint taken from one of the patient’s toes.”
“Oh, Doctor Morrow,” cried the distressed girl, “you are kidding, as the boys say.”
The doctor shook his head. “No, some years ago I might have been indulging in a yarn, but surgery has made great strides these last few decades, and cripples nowadays may be restored to health and strength by transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces. This discovery was announced a short time ago by an eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results were so satisfactory that the same methods have since been applied to the human body with like results.
“Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended with great stiffness and lack of power in the members treated, but now an infected hip joint may be removed in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and the functions work properly. But, young lady, I came here not to deliver a lecture on the transplantation of bones, but to ask you to do something for me.”