After recovering from this and the four examinations that followed I felt that every part of me had been subjected to a scrutiny as thorough as it was painful, and I became positively convinced that whatever else ailed me, I was threatened with sheer nerve exhaustion. I never dreamed there were so many painfully expert methods of examining the interior of a human being. YOU NEVER DISCOVER IF YOU HAVE PASSED OR FLUNKED YOUR EXAMINATIONS 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.”