"Over There" with the AustraliansKnyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
History
"Over There" with the Australians
Knyvett, R. Hugh (Reginald Hugh)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
I have been saving this for a separate chapter; for besides a natural
hesitation in admitting that I am not "all there," I want to have
sufficient space in which to express my gratitude to the doctor who
performed the operation and to the "unknown" who had his leg amputated,
so providing me with a portion of his anatomy that I was in sore need
of. Of course, in these days when surgical miracles are happening
continually there is nothing outstanding about this operation, and
surgeons have wonderful opportunities in a military hospital, where
there are so many spare human parts lying about to patch up a man with.
I quite believe that from three smashed men they could make a whole
one, which, after all, would not be such a marvel when one remembers
that they are continually grafting bones and nerves, and I for one
would not like to say that in the next war they may not be able to cure
a man who has lost his head entirely, and as a matter of fact, one of
the San Francisco papers informed its readers (and as in this country
the impossible of yesterday happens to-day, no doubt they believed it
to be true) that I had had another man's leg grafted onto me. After
such a statement it is an anti-climax to have to inform the public that
it was only a portion of nerve that was grafted.
I had been lying in hospital several weeks before I got worried about
the fact that I could not move my leg. Then when the great-hearted,
plain-faced doctor who was attending to me said, "How's the man of many
wounds this morning?" I asked: "Why is it my leg is dead?" He said:
"We're only waiting for the wounds to heal until we test it." And sure
enough a day or two later I was put in the electric chair for
"reactions." When the current was put onto my right leg I howled and
twisted, but with twice the current on my left leg nothing happened, as
I felt nothing. Some days later a great nerve specialist operated on
me and when I came back to this workaday world from the land of fancy,
whither the ether had borne me, I was informed that a portion of nerve
had been grafted in my leg and that in about three months I might be
able to use it.
At this time I had no idea from whom the portion of nerve came. I did
not like to inquire, for I was afraid that if I met its previous owner
I might be prejudiced against it. Every portion of one's body is so
closely related to the rest that I was afraid if his face did not suit
my fancy I might subconsciously come to resemble him. But whenever I
met one-legged men in the corridors or concert-hall I would try to pick
out the one I would most like to receive such an intimate gift from.
Some of these had a refined, delicate appearance, and I immediately
feared that I would grow tenderfooted, while others looked like
pugilists and I immediately imagined my foot was becoming calloused and
might become longer than the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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