第38章 VI(4)

Here again, in my association with the women of the streets, I realized the limitations of my work in the ministry and in medicine. As minister to soul and body one could do little for these women. For such as them, one's efforts must begin at the very foundation of the social structure. Laws for them must be made and enforced, and some of those laws could only be made and enforced by women. So many great avenues of life were opening up before me that my Cape Cod environment seemed almost a prison where I was held with tender force. I l oved my people and they loved me--but the big outer world was calling, and I could not close my ears to its summons. The suffrage lectures helped to keep me contented, however, and I was certainly busy enough to find happiness in my work.

I was in Boston three nights a week, and during these nights subject to sick calls at any hour. My favorite associates were Dr. Caroline Hastings, our professor of anatomy, and little Dr. Mary Safford, a mite of a woman with an indomitable soul. Dr.

Safford was especially prominent in philanthropic work in Massachusetts, and it was said of her that at any hour of the day or night she could be found working in the slums of Boston. I, too, could fre- q uently be found there--often, no doubt, to the dis- a dvantage of my patients. I was quite famous in three Boston alleys--Maiden's Lane, Fellows Court, and Andrews Court. It most fortunately happened that I did not lose a case in those alleys, though I t ook all kinds, as I had to treat a certain number of surgical and obstetrical cases in my course. No doubt my patients and I had many narrow escapes of which we were blissfully ignorant, but I remember two which for a long time afterward continued to be features of my most troubled dreams.

The first was that of a big Irishman who had pneumonia. When I looked him over I was as much frightened as he was. I had got as far as pneu- m onia in my course, and I realized that here was a bad case of it. I knew what to do. The patient must be carefully packed in towels wrung out of cold water. When I called for towels I found that there was nothing in the place but a dish-towel, which I washed with portentous gravity. The man owned but one shirt, and, in deference to my visit, his wife had removed that to wash it. I packed the patient in the dish-towel, wrapped him in a piece of an old shawl, and left after instructing his wife to repeat the process. When I reached home I remem- b ered that the patient must be packed ``carefully,'' a nd I knew that his wife would do it carelessly.

That meant great risk to the man's life. My im- p ulse was to rush back to him at once, but this would never do. It would destroy all confidence in the doctor. I walked the floor for three hours, and then casually strolled in upon my patient, finding him, to my great relief, better than I had left him. As I was leaving, a child rushed into the room, begging me to come to an upper floor in the same building.

``The baby's got the croup,'' she gasped, ``an' h e's chokin' to death.''

We had not reached croup in our course, and I h ad no idea what to do, but I valiantly accompanied the little girl. As we climbed the long flights of stairs to the top floor I remembered a conversation I had overheard between two medical students. One of them had said: ``If the child is strangling when it inhales, as if it were breathing through a sponge, then give it spongia; but if it is strangling when it breathes out, give it aconite.''

When I reached the baby I listened, but could not tell which way it was strangling. However, I happened to have both medicines with me, so I c alled for two glasses and mixed the two remedies, each in its own glass. I gave them both to the mother, and told her to use them alternately, every fifteen minutes, until the baby was better. The baby got well; but whether its recovery was due to the spongia or to the aconite I never knew.

In my senior year I fell in love with an infant of three, named Patsy. He was one of nine children when I was called to deliver his mother of her tenth child. She was drunk when I reached her, and so were two men who lay on the floor in the same room.

I had them carried out, and after the mother and baby had been attended to I noticed Patsy. He was the most beautiful child I had ever seen--with eyes like Italian skies and yellow hair in tight curls over his adorable little head; but he was covered with filthy rags. I borrowed him, took him home with me, and fed and bathed him, and the next day fitted him out with new clothes. Every hour I had him tightened his hold on my heart-strings. I went to his mother and begged her to let me keep him, but she refused, and after a great deal of argument and entreaty I had to return him to her. When I went to see him a few days later I found him again in his horrible rags. His mother had pawned his new clothes for drink, and she was deeply under its in- f luence. But no pressure I could exert then or later would make her part with Patsy. Finally, for my own peace of mind, I had to give up hope of getting him--but I have never ceased to regret the little adopted son I might have had.