“No,” I said--“they’ve just sent for me; I have to go and be operated on.” At that I closed my eyes and slept again. I afterwards learned that the kidney required a great deal of excavating and curetting, and that I had been on the operating table nearly two hours. MY ENCOUNTER WITH ADHESIVE TAPE My first experience in having the wound dressed was one of the high-lights of the whole occasion--one that requires no straining of the memory to recall. It was indeed a masterpiece of brutality that well deserves to be recorded in medical history; and I remember it as the outstanding instance where my rights and feelings as a patient were asserted with loud spontaneity, in language more forceful than polite. “I have a happy surprise for you,” the nurse greeted me that morning, with a roguish twinkle in her eye; and presently one of the house doctors came in, followed by a nurse pushing a “tea-cart” loaded with bandages, bottles and a wicked looking assortment of probing instruments. He set immediately to work removing my swathings, and when he got down to the criscross network of adhesive tape he carefully peeled up one of the corners, then without the slightest warning he suddenly _ripped the whole thing off_, carrying with it, as I supposed, all the skin, with the kidney and half of my insides adhering to it. “You * * * damned brute!” I exploded. I added much more to the same purpose; but that, for the moment, was all the satisfaction I got. His calloused soul had probably been excoriated many times before. He merely smiled and inquired if it hurt! Ever since then the mere thought of adhesive tape makes me shudder. From five to eight different physicians, including both the Mayo brothers, visited me daily. Though I was not a patient of Doctor Charles Mayo, he called on me regularly, chatted pleasantly for a few moments, and always left with a word of cheer. While my progress was constantly reported to be normal, on the ninth day I began to realize that some strange thing had “got” me--something was certainly going wrong. The drainage tubes had been removed, my incision was almost healed, both kidneys were said to be functioning regularly, my temperature was reported normal (though I knew it was not), and I was told that all blood tests and examinations indicated that I was on the highway to recovery. Still I protested that something had me in its deadly grip, and I began to be alarmed. I complained to the nurse, who said I was only tired and needed sleep. I complained to every doctor that came in, and each in turn, as if they had all rehearsed together, said it was “only natural”; and every time I expostulated with Doctor Will he good-naturedly turned the matter aside with some joke. Once he said that if the fire alarm were to ring, I’d be the first patient to jump out the window.