As I lay musing over the strange occurrences recorded in the previous
chapter, and wondering whether my entire life was a reality or merely a
peculiar dream, one of the white-capped nurses strode up to the side of
my bed and without the slightest warning roughly pushed a little glass
tube in my mouth. Not knowing whether she wanted me to swallow it or was
merely trying to puncture a hole in my tongue, I put it out again and
asked what she intended doing.
"Now look here," said she, in an irritated way, "I have about lost all
patience with you, and unless you do as I tell you hereafter I shall
have the orderly punish you again."
"But," said I, in amazement, "you have not mentioned yet what you would
have me do."
"I have told you fully a hundred times to put this thermometer under
your tongue and keep it there," replied she, exhibiting considerable
temper, as she viciously jammed it once more into my mouth and twisted
it under my tongue. "You are about the biggest chump that ever came into
this hospital," continued she, grasping my wrist as though she intended
breaking it and simultaneously taking my pulse and temperature.
A few moments later she jerked the thermometer from my mouth, glanced at
it hurriedly and then entered a record upon a chart suspended from the
head of my bed. Then calling one of the male attendants, she instructed
him to fill the tub preparatory to giving me an ice bath. This attendant
went to the corner of the room from whence he secured a bath tub on
wheels, which he pushed over to the side of my bed. The tub was already
partly filled with water, and I afterward learned that owing to the
laziness and filthiness of the attendants, the same water was often used
over and over again for the different typhoid patients. I observed that
this attendant, who was otherwise called an orderly, was about as
ignorant and degraded a specimen of humanity as a much boasted
civilization could possibly breed.
He was about six feet tall, round-shouldered, knock-kneed, and weighed
about two hundred pounds of flabby flesh, mostly covered by filthy
garments. His head was pyramidal in shape, and covered by a mass of
unkempt red hair. He had practically no forehead. His eyes were dull and
bloodshot. His nose was flat and bent to one side, and his whole face
was covered with pimples. His mouth was wide and beastly, and filled
with tobacco. His mustache was irregular, and dyed almost to the roots
by tobacco juice. His breath was odoriferous with fumes of whiskey,
cigarettes, and foul stomach disorders, causing a poisonous stench to
pollute the surrounding atmosphere. One could not look upon him without
a feeling of sickening disgust. He was a twentieth century American
civilized Christian. He was not, of course, the highest type of a
civilized Christian, but nevertheless he was of a high enough order for
a Christian community to breed, rear, and put in charge of its sick and
unfortunate members. As he pushed the tub along he carelessly allowed it
to strike the end of my bed, which gave me a shock as though I had been
pierced by a thousand daggers, causing an involuntary groan to escape
from my lips.
"Shut up there, you old duffer," said he, looking at me in a stupid,
expressionless sort of a way, "you are not hurt yet. I'll give you
something to cry about if you don't quit making such a fuss over
nothing. You're the biggest baby I ever saw."
Having fixed the tub in position, put some pieces of ice into the water,
and adjusted a small portable partition around my bed, which obstructed
the view of the other patients, he called for the assistance of another
attendant, and began preparations to put me into the tub. As they
uncovered me, I glanced down at my emaciated form and was astounded at
my own appearance. Nothing now remained of the once muscular and
powerful frame I had always felt so proud of, but sickly looking skin
and bones. Raising my arm to the level of my eyes I discovered that it
was shriveled, and ghastly to behold, and it fell back to my side with a
sickening thud for the want of strength to remain erect. It seemed as if
a great fiery furnace was located within me and that I was fairly
burning alive. Ten thousand different pains were shooting back and forth
in every part of my body, but the most excruciating of all was a
terrible pain in the center of my back, which caused me to think that my
spinal column had been dislocated. And then as if all of the tortures of
a refined civilization had suddenly been thrust upon me, as though some
supernatural hellish agency was instrumental in causing me to go the
full limit of human suffering, those two devilish orderlies took hold of
me, one by the head and the other by the feet, and without any leverage
whatever to break the strain upon my backbone, they raised and then
dumped me into the tub of ice-water below. I had always considered
myself invulnerable to bodily pain, and from early youth had schooled
myself against outward manifestation of suffering, no matter what the
circumstances might be, but on this occasion the power of resistance
deserted me entirely and I gave vent to a howl, of rage like the
bellowing of a maddened bull, and partly arising, endeavored to clutch
the throat of the unfeeling beast at my head, but too weak to accomplish
my purpose I fell back into the tub exhausted. At the same time the
orderly took hold of my own throat and almost strangling me, beat my
head against the tub several times cursing me under his breath in the
vilest of language at the same time.
"Look out you don't kill him," cautioned the other orderly at the foot
of the tub, "or we might have to go through another of those damned
investigations."
Just then the doctor and nurse came within the inclosure, and inquired
as to the cause of the commotion.
"This damned idiot has broken loose again, and I am teaching him how to
behave himself," replied the orderly.
"Well, he certainly needs a lesson in good behavior," chimed in the
nurse; "I cannot understand why he has not been sent over to the Island
for more strenuous treatment long ago."
"Why don't you do as told?" inquired the be-whiskered Dr. Savage, in a
harsh tone of voice, as he approached close to me, but I was too weak
and exhausted to answer, and merely looked from one to the other with
the utmost feeling of contempt. After censuring me sternly and advising
me to behave myself in the future, the doctor strolled away as if such
incidents were of trifling importance.
I was kept in that tub of ice-water, freezing, for fifteen minutes,
while the nurse and orderlies lazily rubbed my arms, legs, and trunk,
and poured pitcher after pitcher of ice-water over my head, in an effort
to reduce the fever. It was a barbarous method of treatment, and seemed
of several hours' duration, but it allayed that intense burning
sensation, and put new life and vigor into me. As they were about to
transfer me back to the bed again, I quietly informed the nurse that my
back was in a terrible condition, and requested that the orderlies be
instructed to handle me a little more carefully, and to take hold of my
body instead of my head and feet when lifting me up, so that the strain
would be less on the middle of my back.
"There is nothing the matter with your back," snapped she. "I have told
you many times before that you only imagine your back hurts.
Furthermore, we understand our business without any advice from you."
And with this rejoinder, the orderlies once more took hold of my head
and heels, and after much tugging and twisting, managed to lift me up
into the bed. This time the pain seemed even greater to bear than
before, but, summoning all my will power, I managed to take the brutal
treatment in silence, and said no more. Back upon the bed again,
shivering and shaking with cold as though my bones would break, I was
covered with heavy blankets, and shortly afterwards fell asleep,
thoroughly exhausted, and feeling assured beyond a doubt that I had once
more returned to civilization.