Is There a Doctor in the Lighthouse?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 503, 11 February 1949, Page 16

Is There a Doctor in the Lighthouse?

Written for "The Listener’

by

G. R.

GILBERT

HAVE heard it said that no home is a home without a Doctor’s Book, and certainly, Joy assured me while we were still living the soft life of the mainland, no lightkeeper worth his salt would consider risking the lives of his wife and children by taking up a position at a lighthouse without one.

"I simply wouldn’t stir from here without one," Joy declared. "Why-think of the children .. ."

"I know," I said. "You like to be able to look everything up and see it put down before you in black and white. I prefer to use my imagination, Wellyou go along and buy a Doctor’s Book

and we'll take it with us." "We had a beautiful one at home," said Joy wistfully. "It was nearly a foot thick and it was full of pictures. It told you everything." I remembered the huge volume, as thick as it was long, and designed by loving hands to strike terror into the hearts of young and old. It was a treasure of Joy’s father. The family still remembered thé occasion when he had developed some minor complaint and found fault with the doctor’s opinion -suspecting him, in fact, of not regarding it seriously enough, The following day he had revisited the doctor with the book under one

arm, returning triumphant with the mews that he had opened the doctor’s eyes all right, and shown him the grave errors in his diagnosis. It wasn’t until some time later that Joy’s mother had gone to see the doctor fierself, and then the doctor had advised her to get the book away from father ‘and quietly burn it before he did himself a mischief. But mother couldn’t think of parting him from the dear companion of so many years for which she had a sneaking regard herself. In her admiration for a Doctor’s Book Joy was’ her father’s equal, and she wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything but the best. For the last week before we embarked for Tiri Tiri and the lighthouse she scoured the Auckland bookshops in a relentless search for the’ best and biggest. Finally she ran it to earth in a little fancy goods shop in Karangahape Road, A beautiful example of the Family or Home Doctor’s Book. One richly illustrated with photographs and meaty colour plates, and replete with little paragraphs in heavy black print, to which the eye could leap in an emergency. There were nine hundred and fifty-seven pages and

fifty-two chapters-one for each week of the year it seemed-each chapter divided into innumerable sections and subsections. The book undoubtedly covered every condition in which the human frame could find itself-mala-dies tropical, sub- tropical, temperate and arctic were covered in full. Men, women and children, and even, in the final section, horses, were dissected with loving

care, and their every frailty exposed in simple language. From the first Joy took to it. In the

week that remained before we left she grew so fond of it that she could scarcely bear to pack it away. And when we arrived at the new home it was the first book to grace the shelves.

‘ND I must ‘say, that its possession has been one means of keeping Joy happy and contented in the home, In fact I would advise every husband who has to care for his wife in isolation to invest in a good Doctor’s Book, for ‘it is a cheap and never-failing sompaores for the leisure hours. Lighthouse life has its own difficulties -unlike city dwellers we have to make all our own entertainment and recreation. We cannot call up Bill or Joe and suggest a round of golf or game of tennis on a Saturday afternoon, there is no pub on the corner, or friends to visit in another suburb. Nor can we fill in the nights with visits to theatres or parties. We did, in fact, bring with us a Spanish guitar that Joy ,had paid 30 shillings for five years ago, and we made several attempts to fill in our time usefully by becoming expert executants on the instrument with the aid of two little books that explained guitar playing from A to Z. But the strings cut into our fingers, and we were never certain when it was tuned correctly, so we_ finally gave it to the other ‘assistant-keeper. He’ discovered that its stem had been warped

from birth and that while an octopus might produce tolerable music from it because of the léngth of its arms, the human hand was totally unfitted for the job. Then it was, while casting: around through this and that in an attempt to find diversion, that Joy discovered the true worth of her Doctor’s Book. Idly she began, turning its pages one drowsy afternoon and it wasn’t long before she was reading, first with interest, then with concentration, and finally with strained attention. When I returned from the jetty with one small schnapper and an even smaller rock-cod as the result of three hours’ fishing, Joy was waiting on the doorstep for me. : "Oh!" she gasped. "I’ve been waiting ages for you. I thought you were never coming," she added accusingly, but with a shade of melancholy in her tone. ° "Not much of a catch, is it?" I asked, holding it up. But Joy brustied the subject of our tea aside. "You know that itching inside my ears," she said. "The itching right inside where I can’t get at it?" "What about it?" I returned. "If you can’t get at it you can’t expect me to do much." Joy leaned against the lintel and drooped in a becoming manner. "I think it’s caused by Saint Anthony’s Fire," she whispered faintly. "Good Lord!" I exclaimed. "How did it get in there?" "I’ve been reading about it in the Book," Joy said simply. "Itchy ears are one. of the symptoms. You can get Saint Anthony’s Fire in the ears. They grow to an enormous size." "Awful," I agreed sympathetically. "Make me a cup of tea and tell me all about it." "It’s been getting worse this afternoon, too," continued Joy as she made the tea with an air of sacrificing her last hours in making me happy. "Since you read about it," I suggested. . "Well-yes," admitted Joy. "Butisn’t it terrible!" * * * OR five days the good Saint's Fire kept Joy happy and occupied. After that the itchiness disappeared and she had to look for some other way to fill in those odd moments. From time to time, there were other discoveries, two of which deserve special notice. There was the occasion thie she approached me strangely and said, "Show me your tongue." ‘Obligingly I did so and Joy atdited at it for perhaps a quarter of a minute. Finally I had to ask her if she had finished with it as it was wanted inside again. "Is it always like that?" she asked curiously. "I expect so," I said, "unless I have been abusing my digestive system." Joy sighed. "It's a different scolour from mine," she said. "You ought to see what the Book says about it. Now you look at mine." "Apart from the fact that it seems a little worn at the edges-no doubt from excessive use-it seems tporomehly normal." ‘Joy was scandalised. "Can’t you see," she said. Producing it again she pointed out a few landmarks.

"What am I supposed to see?" I asked ready to oblige. "It looks like a map!" cried Joy distressfully. "I’ve been looking through the Book. I've been worried about my tengue for the last few days-it seems all ridgy. And I’ve been looking at it in the mirror for hours. Geographic tongue the Book calls it, Isn’t it awful." "Well now-that’s too bad," I said. "Having to carry Mercator’s Projection around with you like that. What do you do about it?" Joy seemed a little disappointed over the remedy. "Nothing really," she said. "Just use an alkaline mouth wash, Then it goes away." "Not very exciting, is it," I said. So Joy made up a large quantity , of mouth wash from water and baking-soda and painstakingly began rinsing her mouth out five times a day. That was some months ago and the ridges are still there.’ Now, when she thinks of them, which is seldom, she inclines towards the view that probably her tongue has always presented a geographic appearance, * * * ATER came the epic of the Toe. Nothing less than capitals can do justice to this. In mid-October the big toe ,of the left foot became numb, Joy was at once on the alert and it wasn’t long before her opening gambit whenever our paths crossed was: "Here-you pinch it for me." But the toe stayed numb. At once the great search began, Unfortunately there was no direct reference in the index to Numb Toe, Joy considered this a weakness in the Book, but I suggested that there might be a medical name for it. The toe continuing numb, Joy grimly began reading through the entire volume with all its 52 chapters commencing at: section one-dis-orders of the scalp. During this project, which took some weeks, Joy developed the major symptoms of 37, deadly diseases, and the preliminary symptoms of some 60 or 70 milder maladies. Altogether it was a great period, with my wife being fully occupied in her leisure moments for the first time in several years. But at the end of the search was disappointment-for there was absolutely no mention of Joy’s particular brand of Numb Toe in the Book. There were plenty of numb toes, but none of them could be tailored to fit Joy’s Numb Toe. The nearest Joy could get to it was gout, but somehow gout didn’t quite seem to suit-there was a suggestion about gout that she felt didn’t go with her. So, finally, the matter of the toe was quietly dropped. But Joy carried around with her a grievance against the Doctor’s Book. In her time of greatest need it had failed her, and in her bitterness she refused even to dust its top as it stood in the bookcase untouched for nearly a month. However, I am glad to say that time has effected a_ reconciliation, and at present Joy is searching through the Book in an off-hand sort of way in pursuit of reasons for her seeing pictures upside-down when she closes her eyes after going to bed at night. Soon I hope the rapprochement will be complete and. once again life will move in its accustomed groove with the Doctor’s Book taking its honoured place in my wife’s domestic recreation,