Edward Berdoe
St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE RISE OF NIGHTINGALE HOSPITAL
Heaven must be won, not dreamed; thy task is set,
Peace was not made for earth, nor rest for thee.
Lyra Apostolica.
And so the medical staff of the Nightingale Hospital of fifty beds consisted of a resident doctor, duly qualified both by nature and the colleges – the only true “double qualification” in this world – with a consulting physician and surgeon of eminence who attended twice a week for a proper fee. This last was not at all an honorary appointment, because doctors never do work for nothing if they can help it, any more than bishops, or even kings; and as they were prevented by the constitution of the place from paying themselves in any of the accustomed ways, substantial cheques had very properly to be drawn. No new operations, no new drugs, no treatment of any kind not well established elsewhere were permitted by the governing body (which had several medical men on its board beside the lay members), because it was held that, however desirable it might be to keep abreast of the science of the day, it was first much more important then and there to get the poor women and children of Commercial Road healed of their diseases as soon as conveniently might be done. Science, as far as Commercial Road folk went, was thus baulked of its prey – no great hindrance probably to the human race. The ladies of Nightingale House had not settled in that locality precisely on scientific grounds: they felt they could safely leave Science in the hands of its devotees, these being probably people so ardently in love with it, that they would sacrifice themselves, their bodies and their feelings on its behalf. The laws of supply and demand would doubtless meet that case as they meet others. This scheme was for quite other and (as the originators thought) better purposes; and the patients took kindly to the idea. They did not mind getting well on empiric methods if the doctors did not object to curing them without knowing why. For their part it was a great deal better to go out whole and sound, unscientifically, than to die according to the highest dictates of science, or hobble away maimed for similar reasons. So it worked well all round. The subscribers secured what they paid for; the patients did not complain of getting well on such terms; the doctors had no cause to grumble. It was only the medical journals which declared that the hospital was not up to the standard demanded by an age like the present.
Two large and well-conducted Convalescent Homes were part of the plan – one situated at Hastings, and the other at Godalming; and these contributed at least as much as the hospital itself to the improved health of the parish.
Now it was objected by those who were not friendly to this place that medical knowledge could never be advanced by such a system, and would stagnate and die, if all hospitals were conducted so selfishly. It was answered that medical science could scarcely be in worse plight than it already was, after all its great opportunities and hecatombs of murdered victims, as admitted by the most eminent medical writers.
No objector to the methods of treatment in our great general hospitals could express himself with more force than Sir Astley Cooper, lecturing to the students of Guy’s Hospital, when he said: “Look, gentlemen, at one hundred patients who come into the hospital. What is the miserable treatment of these patients? You are aware that I scarcely ever enter these wards (the medical wards) of the hospital. I will tell you why I do not enter them. I abstain from entering them because patients are compelled to undergo so infamous a system of treatment that I cannot bear to witness it… No consideration shall induce me to repress my feelings, and I do say that the present treatment of patients is infamous and disgraceful, for their health is irremediably destroyed.” On another occasion this great surgeon said: “The art of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder.”
Nightingale Hospital could not do worse than this anyway!
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MRS. PODGER BECOMES A SIBYL
There’s a real love of a lie,
Liars find ready-made for lies they make,
As hand for glove, or tongue for sugar-plum.
– Browning.
In nothing have hospitals improved more of late years than in their nursing arrangements. This seems coincident with the High Church movement which has given the sick poor the inestimable boon of being nursed by gentlewomen who have adopted the noble profession of nursing from the love of God and their neighbour – ousting the Gamp and Harris sisterhood to the great advantage of their patients. Previous to the reform of this branch of charity, great scandals were always arising from the ignorance, incompetence, indolence, and drunkenness of the women employed to attend upon the sick. Very often, too, the poor invalids were robbed by these persons; and when their little possessions were not actually filched, it was necessary to bribe their attendants to do their duty, or to omit it, as the case might be. Many blots on the management of St. Bernard’s were traced to this source by the governing body; and when Miss Rackworth, the matron, died, it was determined to thoroughly reorganize the nursing staff on the new system, which had been proved successful in other hospitals.
The first thing which the new matron did after her installation was to make a clearance of the Mrs. Gamp order of nurse. And it was time! The age has outgrown “Sairey” and her set. The old hussies made it their business to “keep in” with the students, as they could help them in many ways, but the patients who did not “tip” them got scant courtesy. The newer order of skilled and educated nurses kept the students within due bounds; and, feeling that their first duty was to the patients, never, if they could prevent it, permitted their interests to be sacrificed to medical education. Podger’s days were numbered when Miss Kemp took up the reins of government.
Podger had of late presumed to send away several minor cases of casualty, with wet bandages of her own application, when she was in her cups; and the matron demanded her dismissal. It was a sad day for poor Podger when she turned her back on the hospital she loved. She had saved a little money, not so much as she ought, but still something for a rainy day. So she took a small house in Chillingworth Street, near Seven Dials, and set up in the “ointment” line. Filling her parlour window with a few gross of willow boxes, such as doctors use for their stuff, she announced, “Mrs. Podger’s Old Nurses’ Salve for Bad Legs, Boils, etc.,” and published some remarkable cases, which soon brought a little grist to her mill. But she had also furnished apartments to let, and these were taken by a middle-aged lady in the “medium” line of business – Mrs. Sabina Allen she was called. She was of more than middle stature, with jet-black hair, good features, and a general cheap tragedy-queen aspect. She converted Podger in a month, and with the assistance of her little stone jar of “Old Tom,” made her see the ghosts of her deceased relatives floating about the house in the “most permiscuous manner.” Podger was no sooner a disciple of advanced spiritualism, than she entered into partnership with her lodger, and inserted advertisements in The Medium Light and Daybreak, announcing that public séances were held at 15 Chillingworth Street, every Sunday evening, at eight o’clock.
The first Sunday, some seventeen persons attended, and the collection was a great success, as it amounted to no less a sum than eight shillings and sixpence. Dreams of wealth began to float through the brains of the sibyls. Podger did not admit all comers; they had to pass a “preliminary” in the passage before they went upstairs. Podger was the examiner. When the bell rang, she answered it. The applicant would request admission to the séance.
“Are you a spiritualist?”
“Yes.”
“What journal do you read?”
“Daybreak.”
“Do you know any of our friends?”
“Yes; a Mr. Lapworth and a Miss Clegg who attend here.”
“All right, you can come up.”
Then you were led by Podger into a first-floor front room, very frowsy, dark, and stuffy, in which the chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, facing a big chintz-covered sofa. There was a cabinet or screen in front of a cupboard on the left of the fireplace, covered with black cloth, which material also closely draped the windows, and excluded the light from the street lamps and the public-house opposite. The room was already nearly filled, and, in a few minutes, the medium entered, and took her seat on the sofa, with Podger on her left, by the cabinet. When she had seated herself, you saw that the long greasy mark on the wall-paper behind the couch was caused by the contact of the medium’s head as she leaned back fanning herself, and looking pale and weary. The company, on the occasion we describe, consisted of eleven women, more or less young, evidently work-women, and six men. Eight o’clock having struck, Podger put out the gas, and left the room in total darkness, and then struck up a hymn, —
“Shall we gather at the river?”
which was very well sung by the little congregation. By the time the hymn was finished, the medium had begun to breathe heavily, and occasionally draw deep sighs. When all was silent she began to speak in a queer tone, and Podger announced that it was the spirit of an ancient Egyptian who had entered into the medium temporarily, and who was about to describe what he saw round the heads of the visitors, amongst whom to-night was Janet Spriggs, niece of Mrs. Podger. She was Mrs. Crowe’s maid, and had recently made the acquaintance of Mr. Mole, who had frequent occasion to visit the house on business connected with the Laboratory. The ancient Egyptian declared he saw a vision of a field of waving corn behind Janet’s head, which her aunt interpreted to mean coming prosperity of extraordinary extent; he also saw her seated in a chariot, drawn by horses like those of Pharaoh, and waited upon by slaves of the desert (this was declared to mean she would ride in her own carriage, and have servants of her own); that he also saw Imhotep, the son of Ptah and Pakht, bringing one of his disciples to marry her (Mrs. Podger interpreted this to mean she should wed a young doctor); that an evil spirit was in the house where she lived who meant mischief, and indicated perhaps a speedy visit to the spirit world for a lady who abode there (this was not further explained, as Jenny seemed to know all about it).
As each visitor was permitted to ask any question he liked of the Egyptian gentleman, the fortune-telling business went briskly on till closing time, when everybody felt that they had had a very fair sixpennyworth, and went home to dream of the things in store for them.
“Spirit lights” had floated all about the room, accompanied by handbells, daubed with luminous paint, and agitated by unseen hands. The entertainment was altogether a very eerie affair, and no doubt contributed its quota towards manufacturing mental disorders for the neighbouring asylum.
It was very droll to see the old nurse in her new character. She had, in a few months, cast off most of her hospital peculiarities, and had picked up from the medium an ample vocabulary of spiritualist terms.
They worked together in harness very well. Podger was the jackal who provided the material for the medium to work upon; she got to know all the secrets of the folks who came to the séances, and by her wide acquaintance and powers of ferreting out all about people, kept Mrs. Allen well supplied with provender for the Egyptian and other familiar spirits who hovered about Chillingworth Street.
Mr. Mole never attended the séances, but he frequently saw the ex-nurse, and, by judicious hints, secured to himself the benefits of her niece’s co-operation.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MR. CROWE PARLEYS WITH THE EVIL ONE
He needed her no longer,
Each day it grew more plain;
First with a startled wonder,
Then with a wondering pain.
– Proctor.
“You are sick, that’s sure” – they say;
“Sick of what?” – they disagree.
“’Tis the brain” – thinks Doctor A;
“’Tis the heart” – holds Doctor B;
“The liver – my life I’d lay!”
“The lungs!” “The lights!”
Ah me!
– Browning.
Mr. Crowe was an intensely selfish man, but he had never found his favourite vice a profitable one. Regardless of the feelings of others, he found all the world against him; and his heart, entertaining no good company, was occupied by the evil tenants always on the look-out for such lodgings.
His marriage had brought him nothing but disappointment; his wife, finding him at first indifferent to her society, became at last herself unfit to entertain any one. Her life was no less a burden to herself than to him.
Neglected, and all but ignored, her temper became daily more intolerable; and soon, from a bright, happy woman, she became a morose and shrewish invalid, occupied only with the thoughts of her wrongs.
Because she no longer pleased her husband, she soon grew to be troublesome; and when such a man as Mr. Crowe realizes that state of things, the wish to be rid of it is never far distant from his thoughts. At first a scarcely defined, but soon a clearer shape of deadly intention formed itself before him, and found entertainment in his heart.
What wonder? He had been a murderer half his life in a licensed and acknowledged sense. What pain had he ever spared to secure his ends? What thought for others had ever interfered with his pursuits?
To abstain from putting out of the way of his pleasure and advancement a troublesome wife might be a concession to the prejudices of society. It was certainly only because such a process was condemned by law that he forbore at present to adopt it. He had reasons in abundance to satisfy his own mind that such a method of ridding himself of annoyance was justifiable. It is to be feared that if the murder spirit were to write his reminiscences he could tell some ugly stories of very respectable houses which had exhibited invitations to him to call when on his rounds. Sick people, when their illness lasts an inordinate length of time, must be often wished out of the way, else doctors would not be so frequently asked by over-anxious relatives and friends, “Don’t you think it would be a blessing if the Lord would take him, sir?”
It was a favourite reply of Dr. Stanforth’s to this question, “Very likely, but I am not the Lord.”
How very fortunate it is that our thoughts cannot all be read, and that we can obscure the windows in our breasts from too inquisitive observation!
It must have been very trying to such an experimenter to have to adopt a roundabout method to release himself from his bonds, when he knew of so many pleasant and simple processes of hastening the departure of lingering mortals on the banks of Jordan. There were, however, two perfectly legal, not to say most fashionable, means of facilitating the descent into Hades which he was free to adopt; certain enough, though perhaps a little tedious-viz., Brandy and Chloral; and both quite to the victim’s taste. You could not call Mr. Crowe a generous man, yet he never stinted his wife’s brandy. It was everywhere convenient, and its supply always replenished. There is no law against liberal housekeeping arrangements. Some people, however, take a great deal of killing by alcohol, and Mrs. Crowe seemed obstinately to live for the purpose of confuting the highest medical opinions as to the prognosis of her case. Clearly the cirrhosis was shortening her life in a very languid manner. But the doses of chloral, to which she took very kindly, could be increased, and this was done with better prospects of success. Of course Mr. Crowe took care to let her have the advice of the most eminent of his colleagues, who each diagnosed the disorder from which she suffered according to his own speciality. The eminent heart-specialist considered it the most curious “presystolic” case he had seen for some time. But then the liver and stomach man smiled incredulously when his turn came, and found plenty to interest him also, while he made no account at all of his colleague’s discovery. Then the brain man came along, and said the liver was to ordinary doctors what the devil was to theologians, a very ill-used personality indeed, and generally a mere cover for a diagnosis which puzzled them. For his part, he had decided the mischief to be in the grey matter of one of the frontal convolutions of the brain. The gynæcologist laughed at all the others, and declared that if his delightful branch of science received more attention in the medical world, the profession would make the healing art worthy of the age, which at present it was very far from being.
As they stepped into their carriages after these examinations, each sighed deeply to think how ignorant the other was of the science of medicine, and heartily thanked Providence that they had devoted themselves to their particular speciality.
They ordered that neither stimulants nor chloral should be allowed, and ostensibly both were banished; but as Mrs. Crowe’s servants found little difficulty and no danger in keeping up the supplies, things went on as usual. Her own maid, it will be remembered, was Janet Spriggs, a niece of Nurse Podger. Janet’s private opinion was that, as missus couldn’t eat, she must be kept alive by stimulants; she considered them nourishing and good for ladies in low spirits. Then, as she couldn’t sleep without her draughts, how cruel it would be to deprive her of this means of repose! With the assistance therefore of a neighbouring chemist, the chloral was nightly administered. The chemist had his authority in a prescription of Mr. Crowe’s, which he had repeatedly dispensed without demanding fresh instructions. The worthy pharmacist would not have objected had the paper been brought daily for fifty years. Mr. Crowe never appeared to scrutinise his accounts very closely. Certainly he took no exception whatever to the amount of drugs swallowed by his wife. And so Olympia became a hopeless imbecile.
How she lived was a mystery. A little jelly, a custard, a few spoonfuls of beef tea, a morsel of Brand’s Essence, and her alcohol, helped her to drag on her existence from day to day. Yet for the past two years she had not appeared to be getting much weaker. She had no real kindness from any one about her. Her maid paid her all the attention which could be expected from a servant who did not really love her mistress. But this did not interfere with her “day out,” her “weekly evening,” or her love-making; for Janet was in love, and the object of her heart’s adoration was Mr. Walter Mole. Janet “looked high,” as cook said. Spriggs was a pretty, well-built girl, and it was prophesied in the kitchen that she would “ride in her carriage” some day. Mr. Mole often came to the house on professional business with Mr. Crowe, and though he was extremely discreet in the company of his superiors, was not above a little diversion with the servants when favourable occasions arose. Often of a night when he left Mr. Crowe’s study by the front door he would run down the area steps to have a chat with “pretty little Spriggie,” as he called her, and had frequently met her by appointment on the occasions when her holidays came round; but all this, on both sides, was with the greatest circumspection. Of course her fellow-servants were in the secret; but as no man was kept at Mr. Crowe’s, and as poor Mrs. Crowe was not in a condition to receive confidences, there was no fear of gossip reaching the dining-room, for the unapproachable master would have snapped the head off any domestic who had attempted disclosures with him. Mr. Mole’s little flirtation was not likely to get abroad, and poor Janet went on losing her silly little heart, and dreaming of being one day mistress of an establishment of her own, when her Walter should place her in the position she felt she was born to fill.
Now Mr. Mole’s attentions were not wholly caused by the tender passion. He had long had dark and deep suspicion of his chief. Scientific secrets were concealed from him, of that he was sure. He was carrying out a long course of physiological experiment, the object of which Mr. Mole was unable to fathom, and he was not the sort of man to be kept out of a good thing willingly. A great number of animals had been used up for some unexplained reasons, and always at night; some at the hospital laboratory, and others, as he had reason to suspect, at Crowe’s own home. Numerous square cases had from time to time been sent in from Odessa and other Russian towns. These were never opened in Mr. Mole’s presence, but were always reserved till the nights when Mr. Crowe worked alone. Never had he succeeded in finding even one of the empty cases. What could Mr. Crowe want from Russia which must be kept so very secret?
For months this question had agitated the breast of our inquisitive little physiologist, and he seemed no nearer its solution than when he first set his brains to work upon it. One day, however, he picked up under his employer’s desk a small pamphlet printed in characters of a language with which he was quite unfamiliar. It was something like Greek, but he knew it was not that. However, he thought it was good enough to take pains about, so he went to an office in Fleet Street which advertised itself as willing to translate anything into anything in the world of human speech. He found that the pamphlet in question was in the Russian language, and was a treatise on the poison of mushrooms written by a professor of toxicology at Moscow. It gave a very curious account of the symptoms produced in various mammals by the administration of the active principles of several poisonous fungi, and urged that they should be tried by some doctor, having proper convenience for doing so, on hospital patients, with a view to the investigation of the symptoms produced by them on human beings. Mr. Mole paid his translation fee and preserved his notes for future use, restoring the Russian pamphlet to the laboratory from which he had taken it.
He was still puzzled at the secrecy shown by Mr. Crowe, having often before assisted him in the investigation of the action of the most deadly and obscure vegetable poisons, which were always tried on some of the unfortunate patients with more or less valuable results.
One day, when visiting Janet at her aunt’s home by appointment, Mr. Mole confided to her his desire to know what those foreign boxes contained which he had discovered at the laboratory, and asked her if she had ever observed such things in her master’s rooms? Spriggs said she had not noticed them, but would oblige him by keeping a sharp look-out; and shortly after, to his great delight, she handed him one which she had abstracted from a cupboard in the study. It was empty, but Mr. Mole took it home with a view to closer scrutiny. In the corner of the box, which was of thin deal, he found a brown powder, which he subjected to careful microscopical examination, and was not long in proving to his complete satisfaction that it consisted of the spores of some mushroom, of a species which he was not precisely able to determine. However, he had satisfied himself that certain kinds of Russian fungi were imported by Mr. Crowe for some mysterious purpose. Some months after this he was on a visit to the kitchen when the other servants were absent temporarily, and Spriggs was preparing for her mistress a small dish of stewed mushrooms, of which she was able to partake with more relish than she showed for her other food. Spriggs told him that her master had ordered her to let her mistress have them as often as she liked, as they were very good for her complaint. He did not at the time attach any importance to this discovery; but when a few days after a case of mushroom poisoning of a whole family was reported at the hospital, he remembered the circumstance, and took copious notes of the cases. In the college Library he turned up from the files of the Lancet all the cases he could find of poisoning by fungi, and soon had a very clear idea of the peculiar symptoms of such cases, after which he began a course of experiments for himself. At first he thought Mr. Crowe was engaged on some monograph on the subject that was to bring him distinction, especially as he noticed in the wards set apart to his principal’s cases, symptoms more or less severe, which he had no doubt were due to small doses of some such agent as Muscarin, Lorchelin, or Bulbosin, the active principles of poisonous mushrooms. On examining the prescriptions for the medicines which these patients were taking, he found that his ideas were correct, and that Mr. Crowe had been exhibiting these poisons in minute doses to all of them. He made no remark, but obtaining a supply from the dispenser, tried their effect in various doses on a number of animals which he kept for such purposes in one of the subterranean chambers under the pathological rooms. It was not long before Mr. Mole was in possession of quite a fund of information relating to the use of these potent drugs.
He found, to his horror, that in none of the papers or books which he could find bearing on the subject was there a record of any re-agent or test that could be relied upon for the detection of the poison after it had been taken internally. Other poisons had their respective tests, but these deadly principles existing in fungi could be administered criminally with little chance of detection, and no chemist would be able to prove their presence in food or drink to the satisfaction of any jury.
