The next time I saw the doctor he handed me another batch of envelopes,
which I apologetically declined. Having just come from a very
disagreeable and seemingly unnecessary ordeal, for which I had waited
several hours, I was in a state of hostile rebellion. It was like being
repeatedly put on trial for crimes of which you are innocent; and I
decided that as long as I could get no information whatever about my
kidney, or indeed anything else, it were better to let the remainder of
my organs rest as long as they were at ease.
“Doctor,” said I, “I’ve already explained to you what my trouble
is, and if you are putting me through these third degree maneuvers
merely for the sake of killing time while the X-ray pictures are being
developed, I prefer to choose some less heroic diversion. I’m not
concealing any ailment from you and I don’t care to waste any more of
my time or yours hunting for something that seems to bother you more
than it does me.”
The doctor protested vigorously; he seemed to regard my attitude as
nothing less than mutiny. He declared that all these tests, and a
great many more, were absolutely necessary to complete the records
of my case; and that if I refused to continue there was grave danger
of annulling all the good that had been accomplished. I said that if
any important discovery had been made I’d like to be let in on the
secret. That, he said, would be contrary to the rules. I insisted
that being the owner of the kidney, I was entitled to know something
about the reasons, or at least the results, of all this grilling
process; and as for the sealed verdicts of their examinations, they
meant nothing whatever to me; that what I came there for was to have
my kidney X-rayed, not to be fluoroscoped and dissected from head to
foot. Seeing that the reports on all the tests and examinations were
written in medical terms, and that they were alike inaccessible and
incomprehensible to me, I was not disposed to contribute the additional
time and money necessary to make a complete set of historical records
in which I had no interest or understanding.
“But our records are a valuable contribution to medical science,” he
argued.
“In that case,” said I, “those who are interested in such matters can
provide their own subjects for clinical experimentation. As for me, my
tastes run in other channels.”
At this point I am reminded that one day while waiting near one of
the appointment desks I overheard a spirited conversation between two
patients who were trying to figure out why it was that for ten days
they had both been taking the same identical examinations, one for a
swelling in the ear, the other for a dislocated knee-cap. Finally one
of them reached the conclusion that “in a laundry all shirts, whether
dirty or clean, are run through the same process.”
Although I fell somewhat short of the graduating point, I went far
enough to discover that this great research-academy for bodily ailments
is not devoid of interest for those of boundless patience and physical
endurance, who have a penchant for scientific exploration. It is a
tremendous human dissecting organization which runs with the precision
of clockwork and is fed daily by hundreds of recruits from every state
in the union and every civilized country on earth. It is the Mecca for
thousands of people who enjoy searching their systems for the seat of
some indefinite, unlocatable disorder, either real or imaginary, and
for all such persons it must be a satisfying resort, since it provides
every known mechanism and device for exploring, testing and tormenting
the human anatomy. And those who survive the entire course have the
recompense of knowing they have been thoroughly castor-oiled and
overhauled.
After much persuasion on my part, and many expressions of surprise
and regret on the part of the diagnostician, I finally succeeded in
arranging an appointment with the chief urologist for the next day.
From the appointed time I waited two or three hours, expecting the
while to get a reprimand for my stubbornness; but to my surprise the
distinguished Doctor Braasch greeted me as cordially as if he were
going to present me with a diploma of good health and a magna cum laude
degree for good behavior. Though his geniality appeared to lack nothing
in sincerity, I had a strange presentiment that he had something “up
his sleeve”; and with some anxiety I inquired what my examinations and
blood tests had disclosed. At this his countenance became grave. So did
mine.