THE AMATEUR M.D.
When we sailed from San Francisco on the _Snark_ I knew as much about
sickness as the Admiral of the Swiss Navy knows about salt water. And
here, at the start, let me advise any one who meditates going to
out-of-the-way tropic places. Go to a first-class druggist—the sort
that have specialists on their salary list who know everything. Talk
the matter over with such an one. Note carefully all that he says. Have
a list made of all that he recommends. Write out a cheque for the total
cost, and tear it up.
I wish I had done the same. I should have been far wiser, I know now,
if I had bought one of those ready-made, self-acting, fool-proof
medicine chests such as are favoured by fourth-rate ship-masters. In
such a chest each bottle has a number. On the inside of the lid is
placed a simple table of directions: No. 1, toothache; No. 2, smallpox;
No. 3, stomachache; No. 4, cholera; No. 5, rheumatism; and so on,
through the list of human ills. And I might have used it as did a
certain venerable skipper, who, when No. 3 was empty, mixed a dose from
No. 1 and No. 2, or, when No. 7 was all gone, dosed his crew with 4 and
3 till 3 gave out, when he used 5 and 2.
So far, with the exception of corrosive sublimate (which was
recommended as an antiseptic in surgical operations, and which I have
not yet used for that purpose), my medicine-chest has been useless. It
has been worse than useless, for it has occupied much space which I
could have used to advantage.
With my surgical instruments it is different. While I have not yet had
serious use for them, I do not regret the space they occupy. The
thought of them makes me feel good. They are so much life insurance,
only, fairer than that last grim game, one is not supposed to die in
order to win. Of course, I don’t know how to use them, and what I don’t
know about surgery would set up a dozen quacks in prosperous practice.
But needs must when the devil drives, and we of the _Snark_ have no
warning when the devil may take it into his head to drive, ay, even a
thousand miles from land and twenty days from the nearest port.
I did not know anything about dentistry, but a friend fitted me out
with forceps and similar weapons, and in Honolulu I picked up a book
upon teeth. Also, in that sub-tropical city I managed to get hold of a
skull, from which I extracted the teeth swiftly and painlessly. Thus
equipped, I was ready, though not exactly eager, to tackle any tooth
that get in my way. It was in Nuku-hiva, in the Marquesas, that my
first case presented itself in the shape of a little, old Chinese. The
first thing I did was to got the buck fever, and I leave it to any
fair-minded person if buck fever, with its attendant heart-palpitations
and arm-tremblings, is the right condition for a man to be in who is
endeavouring to pose as an old hand at the business. I did not fool the
aged Chinaman. He was as frightened as I and a bit more shaky. I almost
forgot to be frightened in the fear that he would bolt. I swear, if he
had tried to, that I would have tripped him up and sat on him until
calmness and reason returned.
I wanted that tooth. Also, Martin wanted a snap-shot of me getting it.
Likewise Charmian got her camera. Then the procession started. We were
stopping at what had been the club-house when Stevenson was in the
Marquesas on the Casco. On the veranda, where he had passed so many
pleasant hours, the light was not good—for snapshots, I mean. I led on
into the garden, a chair in one hand, the other hand filled with
forceps of various sorts, my knees knocking together disgracefully. The
poor old Chinaman came second, and he was shaking, too. Charmian and
Martin brought up the rear, armed with kodaks. We dived under the
avocado trees, threaded our way through the cocoanut palms, and came on
a spot that satisfied Martin’s photographic eye.
I looked at the tooth, and then discovered that I could not remember
anything about the teeth I had pulled from the skull five months
previously. Did it have one prong? two prongs? or three prongs? What
was left of the part that showed appeared very crumbly, and I knew that
I should have taken hold of the tooth deep down in the gum. It was very
necessary that I should know how many prongs that tooth had. Back to
the house I went for the book on teeth. The poor old victim looked like
photographs I had seen of fellow-countrymen of his, criminals, on their
knees, waiting the stroke of the beheading sword.
“Don’t let him get away,” I cautioned to Martin. “I want that tooth.”
“I sure won’t,” he replied with enthusiasm, from behind his camera. “I
want that photograph.”
For the first time I felt sorry for the Chinaman. Though the book did
not tell me anything about pulling teeth, it was all right, for on one
page I found drawings of all the teeth, including their prongs and how
they were set in the jaw. Then came the pursuit of the forceps. I had
seven pairs, but was in doubt as to which pair I should use. I did not
want any mistake. As I turned the hardware over with rattle and clang,
the poor victim began to lose his grip and to turn a greenish yellow
around the gills. He complained about the sun, but that was necessary
for the photograph, and he had to stand it. I fitted the forceps around
the tooth, and the patient shivered and began to wilt.
“Ready?” I called to Martin.
“All ready,” he answered.
I gave a pull. Ye gods! The tooth was loose! Out it came on the
instant. I was jubilant as I held it aloft in the forceps.
“Put it back, please, oh, put it back,” Martin pleaded. “You were too
quick for me.”
And the poor old Chinaman sat there while I put the tooth back and
pulled over. Martin snapped the camera. The deed was done. Elation?
Pride? No hunter was ever prouder of his first pronged buck than I was
of that three-pronged tooth. I did it! I did it! With my own hands and
a pair of forceps I did it, to say nothing of the forgotten memories of
the dead man’s skull.
My next case was a Tahitian sailor. He was a small man, in a state of
collapse from long days and nights of jumping toothache. I lanced the
gums first. I didn’t know how to lance them, but I lanced them just the
same. It was a long pull and a strong pull. The man was a hero. He
groaned and moaned, and I thought he was going to faint. But he kept
his mouth open and let me pull. And then it came.
After that I was ready to meet all comers—just the proper state of mind
for a Waterloo. And it came. Its name was Tomi. He was a strapping
giant of a heathen with a bad reputation. He was addicted to deeds of
violence. Among other things he had beaten two of his wives to death
with his fists. His father and mother had been naked cannibals. When he
sat down and I put the forceps into his mouth, he was nearly as tall as
I was standing up. Big men, prone to violence, very often have a streak
of fat in their make-up, so I was doubtful of him. Charmian grabbed one
arm and Warren grabbed the other. Then the tug of war began. The
instant the forceps closed down on the tooth, his jaws closed down on
the forceps. Also, both his hands flew up and gripped my pulling hand.
I held on, and he held on. Charmian and Warren held on. We wrestled all
about the shop.
It was three against one, and my hold on an aching tooth was certainly
a foul one; but in spite of the handicap he got away with us. The
forceps slipped off, banging and grinding along against his upper teeth
with a nerve-scraping sound. Out of his month flew the forceps, and he
rose up in the air with a blood-curdling yell. The three of us fell
back. We expected to be massacred. But that howling savage of
sanguinary reputation sank back in the chair. He held his head in both
his hands, and groaned and groaned and groaned. Nor would he listen to
reason. I was a quack. My painless tooth-extraction was a delusion and
a snare and a low advertising dodge. I was so anxious to get that tooth
that I was almost ready to bribe him. But that went against my
professional pride and I let him depart with the tooth still intact,
the only case on record up to date of failure on my part when once I
had got a grip. Since then I have never let a tooth go by me. Only the
other day I volunteered to beat up three days to windward to pull a
woman missionary’s tooth. I expect, before the voyage of the _Snark_ is
finished, to be doing bridge work and putting on gold crowns.
I don’t know whether they are yaws or not—a physician in Fiji told me
they were, and a missionary in the Solomons told me they were not; but
at any rate I can vouch for the fact that they are most uncomfortable.
It was my luck to ship in Tahiti a French-sailor, who, when we got to
sea, proved to be afflicted with a vile skin disease. The _Snark_ was
too small and too much of a family party to permit retaining him on
board; but perforce, until we could reach land and discharge him, it
was up to me to doctor him. I read up the books and proceeded to treat
him, taking care afterwards always to use a thorough antiseptic wash.
When we reached Tutuila, far from getting rid of him, the port doctor
declared a quarantine against him and refused to allow him ashore. But
at Apia, Samoa, I managed to ship him off on a steamer to New Zealand.
Here at Apia my ankles were badly bitten by mosquitoes, and I confess
to having scratched the bites—as I had a thousand times before. By the
time I reached the island of Savaii, a small sore had developed on the
hollow of my instep. I thought it was due to chafe and to acid fumes
from the hot lava over which I tramped. An application of salve would
cure it—so I thought. The salve did heal it over, whereupon an
astonishing inflammation set in, the new skin came off, and a larger
sore was exposed. This was repeated many times. Each time new skin
formed, an inflammation followed, and the circumference of the sore
increased. I was puzzled and frightened. All my life my skin had been
famous for its healing powers, yet here was something that would not
heal. Instead, it was daily eating up more skin, while it had eaten
down clear through the skin and was eating up the muscle itself.
By this time the _Snark_ was at sea on her way to Fiji. I remembered
the French sailor, and for the first time became seriously alarmed.
Four other similar sores had appeared—or ulcers, rather, and the pain
of them kept me awake at night. All my plans were made to lay up the
_Snark_ in Fiji and get away on the first steamer to Australia and
professional M.D.’s. In the meantime, in my amateur M.D. way, I did my
best. I read through all the medical works on board. Not a line nor a
word could I find descriptive of my affliction. I brought common
horse-sense to bear on the problem. Here were malignant and excessively
active ulcers that were eating me up. There was an organic and
corroding poison at work. Two things I concluded must be done. First,
some agent must be found to destroy the poison. Secondly, the ulcers
could not possibly heal from the outside in; they must heal from the
inside out. I decided to fight the poison with corrosive sublimate. The
very name of it struck me as vicious. Talk of fighting fire with fire!
I was being consumed by a corrosive poison, and it appealed to my fancy
to fight it with another corrosive poison. After several days I
alternated dressings of corrosive sublimate with dressings of peroxide
of hydrogen. And behold, by the time we reached Fiji four of the five
ulcers were healed, while the remaining one was no bigger than a pea.
I now felt fully qualified to treat yaws. Likewise I had a wholesome
respect for them. Not so the rest of the crew of the _Snark_. In their
case, seeing was not believing. One and all, they had seen my dreadful
predicament; and all of them, I am convinced, had a subconscious
certitude that their own superb constitutions and glorious
personalities would never allow lodgment of so vile a poison in their
carcasses as my anæmic constitution and mediocre personality had
allowed to lodge in mine. At Port Resolution, in the New Hebrides,
Martin elected to walk barefooted in the bush and returned on board
with many cuts and abrasions, especially on his shins.
“You’d better be careful,” I warned him. “I’ll mix up some corrosive
sublimate for you to wash those cuts with. An ounce of prevention, you
know.”
But Martin smiled a superior smile. Though he did not say so, I
nevertheless was given to understand that he was not as other men (I
was the only man he could possibly have had reference to), and that in
a couple of days his cuts would be healed. He also read me a
dissertation upon the peculiar purity of his blood and his remarkable
healing powers. I felt quite humble when he was done with me. Evidently
I was different from other men in so far as purity of blood was
concerned.
Nakata, the cabin-boy, while ironing one day, mistook the calf of his
leg for the ironing-block and accumulated a burn three inches in length
and half an inch wide. He, too, smiled the superior smile when I
offered him corrosive sublimate and reminded him of my own cruel
experience. I was given to understand, with all due suavity and
courtesy, that no matter what was the matter with my blood, his
number-one, Japanese, Port-Arthur blood was all right and scornful of
the festive microbe.
Wada, the cook, took part in a disastrous landing of the launch, when
he had to leap overboard and fend the launch off the beach in a
smashing surf. By means of shells and coral he cut his legs and feet up
beautifully. I offered him the corrosive sublimate bottle. Once again I
suffered the superior smile and was given to understand that his blood
was the same blood that had licked Russia and was going to lick the
United States some day, and that if his blood wasn’t able to cure a few
trifling cuts, he’d commit hari-kari in sheer disgrace.
From all of which I concluded that an amateur M.D. is without honour on
his own vessel, even if he has cured himself. The rest of the crew had
begun to look upon me as a sort of mild mono-maniac on the question of
sores and sublimate. Just because my blood was impure was no reason
that I should think everybody else’s was. I made no more overtures.
Time and microbes were with me, and all I had to do was wait.
“I think there’s some dirt in these cuts,” Martin said tentatively,
after several days. “I’ll wash them out and then they’ll be all right,”
he added, after I had refused to rise to the bait.
Two more days passed, but the cuts did not pass, and I caught Martin
soaking his feet and legs in a pail of hot water.
“Nothing like hot water,” he proclaimed enthusiastically. “It beats all
the dope the doctors ever put up. These sores will be all right in the
morning.”
But in the morning he wore a troubled look, and I knew that the hour of
my triumph approached.
“I think I _will_ try some of that medicine,” he announced later on in
the day. “Not that I think it’ll do much good,” he qualified, “but I’ll
just give it a try anyway.”
Next came the proud blood of Japan to beg medicine for its illustrious
sores, while I heaped coals of fire on all their houses by explaining
in minute and sympathetic detail the treatment that should be given.
Nakata followed instructions implicitly, and day by day his sores grew
smaller. Wada was apathetic, and cured less readily. But Martin still
doubted, and because he did not cure immediately, he developed the
theory that while doctor’s dope was all right, it did not follow that
the same kind of dope was efficacious with everybody. As for himself,
corrosive sublimate had no effect. Besides, how did I know that it was
the right stuff? I had had no experience. Just because I happened to
get well while using it was not proof that it had played any part in
the cure. There were such things as coincidences. Without doubt there
was a dope that would cure the sores, and when he ran across a real
doctor he would find what that dope was and get some of it.
About this time we arrived in the Solomon Islands. No physician would
ever recommend the group for invalids or sanitoriums. I spent but
little time there ere I really and for the first time in my life
comprehended how frail and unstable is human tissue. Our first
anchorage was Port Mary, on the island of Santa Anna. The one lone
white man, a trader, came alongside. Tom Butler was his name, and he
was a beautiful example of what the Solomons can do to a strong man. He
lay in his whale-boat with the helplessness of a dying man. No smile
and little intelligence illumined his face. He was a sombre
death’s-head, too far gone to grin. He, too, had yaws, big ones. We
were compelled to drag him over the rail of the _Snark_. He said that
his health was good, that he had not had the fever for some time, and
that with the exception of his arm he was all right and trim. His arm
appeared to be paralysed. Paralysis he rejected with scorn. He had had
it before, and recovered. It was a common native disease on Santa Anna,
he said, as he was helped down the companion ladder, his dead arm
dropping, bump-bump, from step to step. He was certainly the ghastliest
guest we ever entertained, and we’ve had not a few lepers and
elephantiasis victims on board.
Martin inquired about yaws, for here was a man who ought to know. He
certainly did know, if we could judge by his scarred arms and legs and
by the live ulcers that corroded in the midst of the scars. Oh, one got
used to yaws, quoth Tom Butler. They were never really serious until
they had eaten deep into the flesh. Then they attacked the walls of the
arteries, the arteries burst, and there was a funeral. Several of the
natives had recently died that way ashore. But what did it matter? If
it wasn’t yaws, it was something else in the Solomons.
I noticed that from this moment Martin displayed a swiftly increasing
interest in his own yaws. Dosings with corrosive sublimate were more
frequent, while, in conversation, he began to revert with growing
enthusiasm to the clean climate of Kansas and all other things Kansan.
Charmian and I thought that California was a little bit of all right.
Henry swore by Rapa, and Tehei staked all on Bora Bora for his own
blood’s sake; while Wada and Nakata sang the sanitary pæan of Japan.
One evening, as the _Snark_ worked around the southern end of the
island of Ugi, looking for a reputed anchorage, a Church of England
missionary, a Mr. Drew, bound in his whaleboat for the coast of San
Cristoval, came alongside and stopped for dinner. Martin, his legs
swathed in Red Cross bandages till they looked like a mummy’s, turned
the conversation upon yaws. Yes, said Mr. Drew, they were quite common
in the Solomons. All white men caught them.
“And have you had them?” Martin demanded, in the soul of him quite
shocked that a Church of England missionary could possess so vulgar an
affliction.
Mr. Drew nodded his head and added that not only had he had them, but
at that moment he was doctoring several.
“What do you use on them?” Martin asked like a flash.
My heart almost stood still waiting the answer. By that answer my
professional medical prestige stood or fell. Martin, I could see, was
quite sure it was going to fall. And then the answer—O blessed answer!
“Corrosive sublimate,” said Mr. Drew.
Martin gave in handsomely, I’ll admit, and I am confident that at that
moment, if I had asked permission to pull one of his teeth, he would
not have denied me.
All white men in the Solomons catch yaws, and every cut or abrasion
practically means another yaw. Every man I met had had them, and nine
out of ten had active ones. There was but one exception, a young fellow
who had been in the islands five months, who had come down with fever
ten days after he arrived, and who had since then been down so often
with fever that he had had neither time nor opportunity for yaws.
Every one on the _Snark_ except Charmian came down with yaws. Hers was
the same egotism that Japan and Kansas had displayed. She ascribed her
immunity to the pureness of her blood, and as the days went by she
ascribed it more often and more loudly to the pureness of her blood.
Privately I ascribed her immunity to the fact that, being a woman, she
escaped most of the cuts and abrasions to which we hard-working men
were subject in the course of working the _Snark_ around the world. I
did not tell her so. You see, I did not wish to bruise her ego with
brutal facts. Being an M.D., if only an amateur one, I knew more about
the disease than she, and I knew that time was my ally. But alas, I
abused my ally when it dealt a charming little yaw on the shin. So
quickly did I apply antiseptic treatment, that the yaw was cured before
she was convinced that she had one. Again, as an M.D., I was without
honour on my own vessel; and, worse than that, I was charged with
having tried to mislead her into the belief that she had had a yaw. The
pureness of her blood was more rampant than ever, and I poked my nose
into my navigation books and kept quiet. And then came the day. We were
cruising along the coast of Malaita at the time.
“What’s that abaft your ankle-bone?” said I.
“Nothing,” said she.
“All right,” said I; “but put some corrosive sublimate on it just the
same. And some two or three weeks from now, when it is well and you
have a scar that you will carry to your grave, just forget about the
purity of your blood and your ancestral history and tell me what you
think about yaws anyway.”
It was as large as a silver dollar, that yaw, and it took all of three
weeks to heal. There were times when Charmian could not walk because of
the hurt of it; and there were times upon times when she explained that
abaft the ankle-bone was the most painful place to have a yaw. I
explained, in turn, that, never having experienced a yaw in that
locality, I was driven to conclude the hollow of the instep was the
most painful place for yaw-culture. We left it to Martin, who disagreed
with both of us and proclaimed passionately that the only truly painful
place was the shin. No wonder horse-racing is so popular.
But yaws lose their novelty after a time. At the present moment of
writing I have five yaws on my hands and three more on my shin.
Charmian has one on each side of her right instep. Tehei is frantic
with his. Martin’s latest shin-cultures have eclipsed his earlier ones.
And Nakata has several score casually eating away at his tissue. But
the history of the _Snark_ in the Solomons has been the history of
every ship since the early discoverers. From the “Sailing Directions” I
quote the following:
“The crews of vessels remaining any considerable time in the Solomons
find wounds and sores liable to change into malignant ulcers.”
Nor on the question of fever were the “Sailing Directions” any more
encouraging, for in them I read:
“New arrivals are almost certain sooner or later to suffer from fever.
The natives are also subject to it. The number of deaths among the
whites in the year 1897 amounted to 9 among a population of 50.”
Some of these deaths, however, were accidental.
Nakata was the first to come down with fever. This occurred at
Penduffryn. Wada and Henry followed him. Charmian surrendered next. I
managed to escape for a couple of months; but when I was bowled over,
Martin sympathetically joined me several days later. Out of the seven
of us all told Tehei is the only one who has escaped; but his
sufferings from nostalgia are worse than fever. Nakata, as usual,
followed instructions faithfully, so that by the end of his third
attack he could take a two hours’ sweat, consume thirty or forty grains
of quinine, and be weak but all right at the end of twenty-four hours.
Wada and Henry, however, were tougher patients with which to deal. In
the first place, Wada got in a bad funk. He was of the firm conviction
that his star had set and that the Solomons would receive his bones. He
saw that life about him was cheap. At Penduffryn he saw the ravages of
dysentery, and, unfortunately for him, he saw one victim carried out on
a strip of galvanized sheet-iron and dumped without coffin or funeral
into a hole in the ground. Everybody had fever, everybody had
dysentery, everybody had everything. Death was common. Here to-day and
gone to-morrow—and Wada forgot all about to-day and made up his mind
that to-morrow had come.
He was careless of his ulcers, neglected to sublimate them, and by
uncontrolled scratching spread them all over his body. Nor would he
follow instructions with fever, and, as a result, would be down five
days at a time, when a day would have been sufficient. Henry, who is a
strapping giant of a man, was just as bad. He refused point blank to
take quinine, on the ground that years before he had had fever and that
the pills the doctor gave him were of different size and colour from
the quinine tablets I offered him. So Henry joined Wada.
But I fooled the pair of them, and dosed them with their own medicine,
which was faith-cure. They had faith in their funk that they were going
to die. I slammed a lot of quinine down their throats and took their
temperature. It was the first time I had used my medicine-chest
thermometer, and I quickly discovered that it was worthless, that it
had been produced for profit and not for service. If I had let on to my
two patients that the thermometer did not work, there would have been
two funerals in short order. Their temperature I swear was 105°. I
solemnly made one and then the other smoke the thermometer, allowed an
expression of satisfaction to irradiate my countenance, and joyfully
told them that their temperature was 94°. Then I slammed more quinine
down their throats, told them that any sickness or weakness they might
experience would be due to the quinine, and left them to get well. And
they did get well, Wada in spite of himself. If a man can die through a
misapprehension, is there any immorality in making him live through a
misapprehension?
Commend me the white race when it comes to grit and surviving. One of
our two Japanese and both our Tahitians funked and had to be slapped on
the back and cheered up and dragged along by main strength toward life.
Charmian and Martin took their afflictions cheerfully, made the least
of them, and moved with calm certitude along the way of life. When Wada
and Henry were convinced that they were going to die, the funeral
atmosphere was too much for Tehei, who prayed dolorously and cried for
hours at a time. Martin, on the other hand, cursed and got well, and
Charmian groaned and made plans for what she was going to do when she
got well again.
Charmian had been raised a vegetarian and a sanitarian. Her Aunt Netta,
who brought her up and who lived in a healthful climate, did not
believe in drugs. Neither did Charmian. Besides, drugs disagreed with
her. Their effects were worse than the ills they were supposed to
alleviate. But she listened to the argument in favour of quinine,
accepted it as the lesser evil, and in consequence had shorter, less
painful, and less frequent attacks of fever. We encountered a Mr.
Caulfeild, a missionary, whose two predecessors had died after less
than six months’ residence in the Solomons. Like them he had been a
firm believer in homeopathy, until after his first fever, whereupon,
unlike them, he made a grand slide back to allopathy and quinine,
catching fever and carrying on his Gospel work.
But poor Wada! The straw that broke the cook’s back was when Charmian
and I took him along on a cruise to the cannibal island of Malaita, in
a small yacht, on the deck of which the captain had been murdered half
a year before. _Kai-kai_ means to eat, and Wada was sure he was going
to be _kai-kai’d_. We went about heavily armed, our vigilance was
unremitting, and when we went for a bath in the mouth of a fresh-water
stream, black boys, armed with rifles, did sentry duty about us. We
encountered English war vessels burning and shelling villages in
punishment for murders. Natives with prices on their heads sought
shelter on board of us. Murder stalked abroad in the land. In
out-of-the-way places we received warnings from friendly savages of
impending attacks. Our vessel owed two heads to Malaita, which were
liable to be collected any time. Then to cap it all, we were wrecked on
a reef, and with rifles in one hand warned the canoes of wreckers off
while with the other hand we toiled to save the ship. All of which was
too much for Wada, who went daffy, and who finally quitted the _Snark_
on the island of Ysabel, going ashore for good in a driving rain-storm,
between two attacks of fever, while threatened with pneumonia. If he
escapes being _kai-kai’d_, and if he can survive sores and fever which
are riotous ashore, he can expect, if he is reasonably lucky, to get
away from that place to the adjacent island in anywhere from six to
eight weeks. He never did think much of my medicine, despite the fact
that I successfully and at the first trial pulled two aching teeth for
him.
The _Snark_ has been a hospital for months, and I confess that we are
getting used to it. At Meringe Lagoon, where we careened and cleaned
the _Snark’s_ copper, there were times when only one man of us was able
to go into the water, while the three white men on the plantation
ashore were all down with fever. At the moment of writing this we are
lost at sea somewhere northeast of Ysabel and trying vainly to find
Lord Howe Island, which is an atoll that cannot be sighted unless one
is on top of it. The chronometer has gone wrong. The sun does not shine
anyway, nor can I get a star observation at night, and we have had
nothing but squalls and rain for days and days. The cook is gone.
Nakata, who has been trying to be both cook and cabin boy, is down on
his back with fever. Martin is just up from fever, and going down
again. Charmian, whose fever has become periodical, is looking up in
her date book to find when the next attack will be. Henry has begun to
eat quinine in an expectant mood. And, since my attacks hit me with the
suddenness of bludgeon-blows I do not know from moment to moment when I
shall be brought down. By a mistake we gave our last flour away to some
white men who did not have any flour. We don’t know when we’ll make
land. Our Solomon sores are worse than ever, and more numerous. The
corrosive sublimate was accidentally left ashore at Penduffryn; the
peroxide of hydrogen is exhausted; and I am experimenting with boracic
acid, lysol, and antiphlogystine. At any rate, if I fail in becoming a
reputable M.D., it won’t be from lack of practice.
P.S. It is now two weeks since the foregoing was written, and Tehei,
the only immune on board has been down ten days with far severer fever
than any of us and is still down. His temperature has been repeatedly
as high as 104, and his pulse 115.
P.S. At sea, between Tasman atoll and Manning Straits. Tehei’s attack
developed into black water fever—the severest form of malarial fever,
which, the doctor-book assures me, is due to some outside infection as
well. Having pulled him through his fever, I am now at my wit’s end,
for he has lost his wits altogether. I am rather recent in practice to
take up the cure of insanity. This makes the second lunacy case on this
short voyage.
P.S. Some day I shall write a book (for the profession), and entitle
it, “Around the World on the Hospital Ship _Snark_.” Even our pets have
not escaped. We sailed from Meringe Lagoon with two, an Irish terrier
and a white cockatoo. The terrier fell down the cabin companionway and
lamed its nigh hind leg, then repeated the manœuvre and lamed its off
fore leg. At the present moment it has but two legs to walk on.
Fortunately, they are on opposite sides and ends, so that she can still
dot and carry two. The cockatoo was crushed under the cabin skylight
and had to be killed. This was our first funeral—though for that
matter, the several chickens we had, and which would have made welcome
broth for the convalescents, flew overboard and were drowned. Only the
cockroaches flourish. Neither illness nor accident ever befalls them,
and they grow larger and more carnivorous day by day, gnawing our
finger-nails and toe-nails while we sleep.
P.S. Charmian is having another bout with fever. Martin, in despair,
has taken to horse-doctoring his yaws with bluestone and to blessing
the Solomons. As for me, in addition to navigating, doctoring, and
writing short stories, I am far from well. With the exception of the
insanity cases, I’m the worst off on board. I shall catch the next
steamer to Australia and go on the operating table. Among my minor
afflictions, I may mention a new and mysterious one. For the past week
my hands have been swelling as with dropsy. It is only by a painful
effort that I can close them. A pull on a rope is excruciating. The
sensations are like those that accompany severe chilblains. Also, the
skin is peeling off both hands at an alarming rate, besides which the
new skin underneath is growing hard and thick. The doctor-book fails to
mention this disease. Nobody knows what it is.
P.S. Well, anyway, I’ve cured the chronometer. After knocking about the
sea for eight squally, rainy days, most of the time hove to, I
succeeded in catching a partial observation of the sun at midday. From
this I worked up my latitude, then headed by log to the latitude of
Lord Howe, and ran both that latitude and the island down together.
Here I tested the chronometer by longitude sights and found it
something like three minutes out. Since each minute is equivalent to
fifteen miles, the total error can be appreciated. By repeated
observations at Lord Howe I rated the chronometer, finding it to have a
daily losing error of seven-tenths of a second. Now it happens that a
year ago, when we sailed from Hawaii, that selfsame chronometer had
that selfsame losing error of seven-tenths of a second. Since that
error was faithfully added every day, and since that error, as proved
by my observations at Lord Howe, has not changed, then what under the
sun made that chronometer all of a sudden accelerate and catch up with
itself three minutes? Can such things be? Expert watchmakers say no;
but I say that they have never done any expert watch-making and
watch-rating in the Solomons. That it is the climate is my only
diagnosis. At any rate, I have successfully doctored the chronometer,
even if I have failed with the lunacy cases and with Martin’s yaws.
P.S. Martin has just tried burnt alum, and is blessing the Solomons
more fervently than ever.
P.S. Between Manning Straits and Pavuvu Islands.
Henry has developed rheumatism in his back, ten skins have peeled off
my hands and the eleventh is now peeling, while Tehei is more lunatic
than ever and day and night prays God not to kill him. Also, Nakata and
I are slashing away at fever again. And finally up to date, Nakata last
evening had an attack of ptomaine poisoning, and we spent half the
night pulling him through.
BACKWORD
The _Snark_ was forty-three feet on the water-line and fifty-five over
all, with fifteen feet beam (tumble-home sides) and seven feet eight
inches draught. She was ketch-rigged, carrying flying-jib, jib,
fore-staysail, main-sail, mizzen, and spinnaker. There were six feet of
head-room below, and she was crown-decked and flush-decked. There were
four alleged _water-tight_ compartments. A seventy-horse power
auxiliary gas-engine sporadically furnished locomotion at an
approximate cost of twenty dollars per mile. A five-horse power engine
ran the pumps when it was in order, and on two occasions proved capable
of furnishing juice for the search-light. The storage batteries worked
four or five times in the course of two years. The fourteen-foot launch
was rumoured to work at times, but it invariably broke down whenever I
stepped on board.
But the _Snark_ sailed. It was the only way she could get anywhere. She
sailed for two years, and never touched rock, reef, nor shoal. She had
no inside ballast, her iron keel weighed five tons, but her deep
draught and high freeboard made her very stiff. Caught under full sail
in tropic squalls, she buried her rail and deck many times, but
stubbornly refused to turn turtle. She steered easily, and she could
run day and night, without steering, close-by, full-and-by, and with
the wind abeam. With the wind on her quarter and the sails properly
trimmed, she steered herself within two points, and with the wind
almost astern she required scarcely three points for self-steering.
The _Snark_ was partly built in San Francisco. The morning her iron
keel was to be cast was the morning of the great earthquake. Then came
anarchy. Six months overdue in the building, I sailed the shell of her
to Hawaii to be finished, the engine lashed to the bottom, building
materials lashed on deck. Had I remained in San Francisco for
completion, I’d still be there. As it was, partly built, she cost four
times what she ought to have cost.
The _Snark_ was born unfortunately. She was libelled in San Francisco,
had her cheques protested as fraudulent in Hawaii, and was fined for
breach of quarantine in the Solomons. To save themselves, the
newspapers could not tell the truth about her. When I discharged an
incompetent captain, they said I had beaten him to a pulp. When one
young man returned home to continue at college, it was reported that I
was a regular Wolf Larsen, and that my whole crew had deserted because
I had beaten it to a pulp. In fact the only blow struck on the _Snark_
was when the cook was manhandled by a captain who had shipped with me
under false pretences, and whom I discharged in Fiji. Also, Charmian
and I boxed for exercise; but neither of us was seriously maimed.
The voyage was our idea of a good time. I built the _Snark_ and paid
for it, and for all expenses. I contracted to write thirty-five
thousand words descriptive of the trip for a magazine which was to pay
me the same rate I received for stories written at home. Promptly the
magazine advertised that it was sending me especially around the world
for itself. It was a wealthy magazine. And every man who had business
dealings with the _Snark_ charged three prices because forsooth the
magazine could afford it. Down in the uttermost South Sea isle this
myth obtained, and I paid accordingly. To this day everybody believes
that the magazine paid for everything and that I made a fortune out of
the voyage. It is hard, after such advertising, to hammer it into the
human understanding that the whole voyage was done for the fun of it.
I went to Australia to go into hospital, where I spent five weeks. I
spent five months miserably sick in hotels. The mysterious malady that
afflicted my hands was too much for the Australian specialists. It was
unknown in the literature of medicine. No case like it had ever been
reported. It extended from my hands to my feet so that at times I was
as helpless as a child. On occasion my hands were twice their natural
size, with seven dead and dying skins peeling off at the same time.
There were times when my toe-nails, in twenty-four hours, grew as thick
as they were long. After filing them off, inside another twenty-four
hours they were as thick as before.
The Australian specialists agreed that the malady was non-parasitic,
and that, therefore, it must be nervous. It did not mend, and it was
impossible for me to continue the voyage. The only way I could have
continued it would have been by being lashed in my bunk, for in my
helpless condition, unable to clutch with my hands, I could not have
moved about on a small rolling boat. Also, I said to myself that while
there were many boats and many voyages, I had but one pair of hands and
one set of toe-nails. Still further, I reasoned that in my own climate
of California I had always maintained a stable nervous equilibrium. So
back I came.
Since my return I have completely recovered. And I have found out what
was the matter with me. I encountered a book by Lieutenant-Colonel
Charles E. Woodruff of the United States Army entitled “Effects of
Tropical Light on White Men.” Then I knew. Later, I met Colonel
Woodruff, and learned that he had been similarly afflicted. Himself an
Army surgeon, seventeen Army surgeons sat on his case in the
Philippines, and, like the Australian specialists, confessed themselves
beaten. In brief, I had a strong predisposition toward the
tissue-destructiveness of tropical light. I was being torn to pieces by
the ultra-violet rays just as many experimenters with the X-ray have
been torn to pieces.
In passing, I may mention that among the other afflictions that jointly
compelled the abandonment of the voyage, was one that is variously
called the healthy man’s disease, European Leprosy, and Biblical
Leprosy. Unlike True Leprosy, nothing is known of this mysterious
malady. No doctor has ever claimed a cure for a case of it, though
spontaneous cures are recorded. It comes, they know not how. It is,
they know not what. It goes, they know not why. Without the use of
drugs, merely by living in the wholesome California climate, my silvery
skin vanished. The only hope the doctors had held out to me was a
spontaneous cure, and such a cure was mine.
A last word: the test of the voyage. It is easy enough for me or any
man to say that it was enjoyable. But there is a better witness, the
one woman who made it from beginning to end. In hospital when I broke
the news to Charmian that I must go back to California, the tears
welled into her eyes. For two days she was wrecked and broken by the
knowledge that the happy, happy voyage was abandoned.
Glen Ellen, California,
_April_ 7, 1911.
FOOTNOTES
[268] To point out that we of the _Snark_ are not a crowd of weaklings,
which might be concluded from our divers afflictions, I quote the
following, which I gleaned verbatim from the _Eugenie’s_ log and which
may be considered as a sample of Solomon Islands cruising:
Ulava, Thursday, March 12, 1908.
Boat went ashore in the morning. Got two loads ivory nut, 4000 copra.
Skipper down with fever.
Ulava, Friday, March 13, 1908.
Buying nuts from bushmen, 1½ ton. Mate and skipper down with fever.
Ulava, Saturday, March 14, 1908.
At noon hove up and proceeded with a very light E.N.E. wind for
Ngora-Ngora. Anchored in 5 fathoms—shell and coral. Mate down with
fever.
Ngora-Ngora, Sunday, March 15, 1908.
At daybreak found that the boy Bagua had died during the night, on
dysentery. He was about 14 days sick. At sunset, big N.W. squall.
(Second anchor ready) Lasting one hour and 30 minutes.
At sea, Monday, March 16, 1908.
Set course for Sikiana at 4 P.M. Wind broke off. Heavy squalls during
the night. Skipper down on dysentery, also one man.
At sea, Tuesday, March 17, 1908.
Skipper and 2 crew down on dysentery. Mate fever.
At sea, Wednesday, March 18, 1908.
Big sea. Lee-rail under water all the time. Ship under reefed mainsail,
staysail, and inner jib. Skipper and 3 men dysentery. Mate fever.
At sea, Thursday, March 19, 1908.
Too thick to see anything. Blowing a gale all the time. Pump plugged up
and bailing with buckets. Skipper and five boys down on dysentery.
At sea, Friday, March 20, 1908.
During night squalls with hurricane force. Skipper and six men down on
dysentery.
At sea, Saturday, March 21, 1908.
Turned back from Sikiana. Squalls all day with heavy rain and sea.
Skipper and best part of crew on dysentery. Mate fever.
And so, day by day, with the majority of all on board prostrated, the
_Eugenie’s_ log goes on. The only variety occurred on March 31, when
the mate came down with dysentery and the skipper was floored by fever.