Martin more desperately than ever felt the whole county watching him. He was not a praise-eater; he was not proud that he should feel misplaced; but however sturdily he struggled he saw himself outside the picture of Wheatsylvania and trudging years of country practise.
Suddenly, without planning it, forgetting in his admiration for Sondelius and the health war his pride of the laboratory, he was thrown into a research problem.
III
There was blackleg among the cattle in Crynssen County. The state veterinarian had been called and Dawson Hunziker vaccine had been injected, but the disease spread. Martin heard the farmers wailing. He noted that the injected cattle showed no inflammation nor rise in temperature. He was roused by a suspicion that the Hunziker vaccine had insufficient living organisms, and he went yelping on the trail of his hypothesis.
He obtained (by misrepresentations) a supply of the vaccine and tested it in his stuffy closet of a laboratory. He had to work out his own device for growing anaërobic cultures, but he had been trained by the Gottlieb who remarked, “Any man dat iss unable to build a filter out of toot’-picks, if he has to, would maybe better buy his results along with his fine equipment.” Out of a large fruit-jar and a soldered pipe Martin made his apparatus.
When he was altogether sure that the vaccine did not contain living blackleg organisms, he was much more delighted than if he had found that good Mr. Dawson Hunziker was producing honest vaccine.
With no excuse and less encouragement he isolated blackleg organisms from sick cattle and prepared an attenuated vaccine of his own. It took much time. He did not neglect his patients but certainly he failed to appear in the stores, at the poker games. Leora and he dined on a sandwich every evening and hastened to the laboratory, to heat the cultures in the improvised water-bath, an ancient and leaky oatmeal-cooker with an alcohol lamp. The Martin who had been impatient of Hesselink was of endless patience as he watched his results. He whistled and hummed, and the hours from seven to midnight were a moment. Leora, frowning placidly, the tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth, guarded the temperature like a good little watchdog.
After three efforts with two absurd failures, he had a vaccine which satisfied him, and he injected a stricken herd. The blackleg stopped, which was for Martin the end and the reward, and he turned his notes and supply of vaccine over to the state veterinarian. For others, it was not the end. The veterinarians of the county denounced him for intruding on their right to save or kill cattle; the physicians hinted, “That’s the kind of monkey-business that ruins the dignity of the profession. I tell you Arrowsmith’s a medical nihilist and a notoriety-seeker, that’s what he is. You mark my words, instead of his sticking to decent regular practise, you’ll be hearing of his opening a quack sanitarium, one of these days!”
He commented to Leora:
“Dignity, hell! If I had my way I’d be doing research—oh, not this cold detached stuff of Gottlieb but really practical work—and then I’d have some fellow like Sondelius take my results and jam ’em down people’s throats, and I’d make them and their cattle and their tabby-cats healthy whether they wanted to be or not, that’s what I’d do!”