With Grenfell on the LabradorWaldo, Fullerton L. (Fullerton Leonard)
History
With Grenfell on the Labrador
Waldo, Fullerton L. (Fullerton Leonard)
Grenfell, Wilfred Thomason, Sir, 1865-1940
When the Doctor enters a harbour unannounced and drops anchor, within a
few minutes power-boats and rowboats are flocking about the
_Strathcona_, and the deck fills with fishermen, their wives and their
children, all with their major and minor troubles. Sometimes it requires
the whole family to bring a patient. Often after a diagnosis it seems
advisable to place a patient in the hospital at Battle Harbour or St.
Anthony, and so the “Torquay Cot” or another in the diminutive hospital
on the _Strathcona_ is filled, or perhaps the passenger goes to hob-nob
with the good-natured crew and consume their victuals. Many a crying
baby, in the limited space, makes the narrow quarters below-decks
reverberate with the heraldry of the fact that he is teething or has the
tummyache.
The Doctor operates at the foot of the companion-ladder leading down
into the saloon, which is dining-room, living-room and everything else.
“I always have a basin of blood at the foot of the ladder,” he grimly
remarks.
I told him I thought I would call what I wrote about him “From Topsails
to Tonsils,” since with such versatility he passed from the former to
the latter. “That reminds me,” he said with a laugh, “of the time I went
ashore with Dr. John Adams, and the first thing we did was to lay three
children out on the table and remove their tonsils. That was a mighty
bloody job, I can tell you!”
The hatchway over his head as he operates is always filled with the
heads of so many spectators—including frequently the Doctor’s dog,
Fritz—that the meagre light which comes from above is nearly shut off.
Often a lamp is necessary, and as electric flash-lamps are notoriously
faithless in a crisis, it is usually a kerosene lamp. Often an impatient
patient starts to come down before his time, or an over-eager parent or
husband thinks he must accompany the one that he has brought for the
doctor’s lancet. It is hard to get elbow-room for the necessary surgery,
and every operation is a more or less public clinical demonstration.
Usually the description of the symptoms is of the vaguest.
“I’m chilled to the cinders,” said an anxious Irishman.
“Well, we can put on some fresh coal,” was the Doctor’s answer. “How old
are you?”
“Forty-six, Doctor!”
“A mere child!” the doctor replies, and the merry twinkle in his eyes
brings an answering smile to the face of the sufferer. The Doctor
himself was fifty-five years old in February, 1920.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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