MOTORITIS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 34, 25 August 1904, Page 24

MOTORITIS

The greatest of all surgeons sat dejectedly in his cojis/ulting room. This wonderful man's broad forehead, topped by a sedfof billowing cotton wool, was furrowed from dejection. Nervously his long white fingeis tapped one another. Then, toying despondently with his offside whisker, he rose from his desk and walked slowly about the room— a room that, to his mind, seemed to be peopled with the ghosts of the patients of the past.

For many months no sufferer had come to seek his advice, but his woonderful pomposity in the doing of trivial acts had not deserted him. He lighted a cigar in the fashion of one performiog, with incredible skill, a practically impossible surgical operation. Turning suddenly, he faced his daughter.

Then, in his best deathbed manner, he looked critically at tfie fair young face — at tthe eyes gazing appcalmgly toward him.

Almost brusquely he said, as though diagnosing a case of fatal giavity, m his old manner : 'It is hopeless ! ' His lips shut tight ; then he repeated : ' Absolutely hopeless ,my dear ! This Dr. Horace BartonBrowne may be all that you describe ; I have no doubt that he is. You say that he has a reputation for considerable ability as a surgeon (the hyphen and the alliteration in his name are admirably professional, though somewhat Early-Edwardian). You add that you love him ! '

Then, as though performing a very slight operation, he stroked her hair.

1 On each of these points,' he cdntinued, ' I am sure that a girl of your judgment is probably right.'

Witfh a touch of pride he smiled as he said : ' A daughter of mine could not love any surgeon who was other Mian skilful. But I cannot allow you to marry Dr. Barton-Browne ! '

A wave of agony passed over the delicate oval of her face. Hilda had received an unexpected blow, and the kindly touch of her father's hand did not diminish its force. 1 Father !— but I love him ! » She could not understand.

( Precisely, '■ he answered, with painful precision .your love for him prepossesses me, to a certain s extent' m his favor. But I cannot permit a daughter of mine to marry a surgeon.' The girL was -astonished and mystified at 'this statement.

' A surgeon ! ' she cried. That he of all men should make what was practically an indictment on his own profession seemed incomprehensible. That he, a man of world-wide reputation, should Uke smb. a view mystified her completely Also, he was the kindest of fathers. His position seemed entirely incomprehensible. Im her bewilderment she exclaimed : ' I don't under-* stand. You yourself—' (She was only an amateur* of eighteen, but she 10-vod with all the enthusiasm of an expert of eighty.)

/ies,' he replied, as he walked about the room puffing his cigar, ' there was a time when I made a large income by surgery. How large it was I scarcely like to tthink now. When I look at my books I can hardly believe the figures I see. To-day lam not making! a penny. No sutgeon in England is making atn income of any sort, ana this state of things has lastdd for a long time, and will in all probability continue. Surgery is dead as a means of gaining a livelihood. It is years since we had a fashionable disease. True,' he added, leflectively, and not without a touch of improper pride' ' I invented double-dyspepsia, a gold mine while it lasted. Pleuro-peritonitis brought me in large sums, and treble typhitis was not a bad idea in its way. But where are we now ?' he asked, rhetorically. ' Whoever suffers from them now ? Nowadays all these things are out of date, absolutely as out of date as the dodo.' ' But, father,' the girl urged, ' this state of things can't continue.'

Without heeding her interruption, he proceeded, his black chemlic eyebrows meeting fiercely above his nose : ' About eighteen months ago the Duchess of Fontenoy— my last patient, by the bye— called on me with a view to suffering fiom a novel complaint. She had to do something , it didn't much matter what. She was quite candid with me. Her divorce case was forgotten. She had marriea a man old enough to be her husband, she assured me— l myself had entirely forgotten the fact— and her nuptials had fallen terribly flat. (It had been assumed that she intended to kidnap an Eton boy, and the public had been disappointed in her subsequent alliance.) She wanted a " boom," she wanted something absolutely new.

'My dear girl, what could Ido ? I did my best. I offered her double dyspepsia, and she waLked out of tihis room hive an offended balloon. What is more, she did n,ot even leave me my two guineas. So you see, dear it is perfectly hopeless.'

' That n no reason why I should not marry Horace,' Hilda interposed.

1 Good heavens, yes ' ' he answered ; ' you say that this young man is a capable surgeon, and I myself hear that he is enthusiastic on the subject of his profession. That enthusiasm and that capacity will prevent him from entering another walk in life in which he can hope to make a living. He will die a surgeon, and he will die a pauper.'

' Father ! '

Tdie great surgeon continued to walk about the room. ' The trouble is this,' ho said, ' we have over-operated We have performed every possible operation on poor humanity, save capital amputation. Indeed,' he added with a mirthless smile, ' we have operated on the golden goose lo such an extent that it is incapable of laying even a copper egg.' In vain did "Hilda use all those arguments that crowd into our nntids when we are bent upon a foolish action. Easily the opinions of the great sturgeon defeated the sentiments of the girl.

Her own knowledge told her that even her father, the head of his profession though he was, might just as well live in Heligoland as in Harley street, so far as his practice was concerned. If he could not invent a new fashionable disease, what prospect was .there for her Horace ?

(Lo\c may inspire a poet, but it cannot inspire a surgeon.)

The warmth of her kisses, tyie rapture of her society, would be powerless to inspire in his brain a new and costly ailment for mankind.

when reason h?>d completely conquered sentiment the toars came, and the poor girl went oiut of the room realising that there was no hope of happiness in her life

Later in the afternoon Dr. Barton-Browne was shown into tihe consulting; room of the 'greatest of all stareeons.

He was received with the cold courtesy allotted to persons who call at government offices on important business/

The eminent specialist regarded him with eyes that seemed to pierce his frame and find him moribund. The shake of the head that summed up the glance was almost a deaUh warrant for the young man. After that fcihake of the head no liie insurance office would have had 9«ny dealings with Dr. Barton-Browne.

The tapping of the great specialist's fingers expressed that the young man was suffering from all the ailments to which flesh is heir ; that he had made a corner in all the worst kinds of microbes. Apparently he had about a minute and a half to live.

Unabaslhed, the young man, with an energetic flutter of his coat tails, took a beat.

This action seemed t)o cause the elder man grave anxiety. Through his nose glass he regarded the newcomer as though at any moment he might expire as he sat.

'•It is useless,' said he, in an essentially discomforting manner. ' I know all about it. My daughter—' Cheerily Dr. Barton-Browne interrupted him : 1 I have not come to speak of your daughter— that is, not directly, Sir James. 1

His eyes opened wide with intense surprise, the specialist queried, ' For what possible purpose — ' An undertaker receiving a visit from a gentleman ■who ordered a pair of wedding trousers would not have been more astonished .than Sir James at the hearty and festive demeanor of Dr. Barton-Browne.

He paused for a reply, without apparently expecting that the answer woulti stand in any relation to sanity The .young man bent o\er the table, his eyes gleaming with the enthusiasm of an inventor and of a man in love.

Slowly, but very forcibly, the words came ' I have invented a new disease.' ' Impossible !'

Sir James fell back in his seat.

1 I am ha-ppy to say it is not,' said the other. 'On all hands you will have observed the great demand that exists*— especially among women— for a really new or original disease.'

' I know ; I know. One cannot deny the demand, but one can scarcely credit the possibility of the supI y' _.

' The tea tables of Belgravia and Bayswater are alike silent from the dearth of fashionable ailment as a topic of conversation,' corroborated Dr. Barton-Browne.

Somewhat stiffly, the other man replied, ' You nold a very low opinion of disease, sir. You regard it as a mere topic of conversation.'

(The discovery of the obvious is always displeasing to the eminent. Only a few days before a subaltern at the Naval and M htary Club had been brought up before the committee for stating in the presence of two colonels ' that the service, egad, sir, was going to the dogs.' The etiquette of each profession insists that junior members shall be ignorant of its defects.) Sir James would have been more than human had lie been pleased with the young man's flippancy. (The flippancy of the young is the perspicacity of the old.)

Earnestly Dr. Barton-Browne answered

1 I look upon disease as a fashion. With fashion one does not supply a want ; one creates it. I hope, with your assistance, to create a demand for " motoritis." ' ' Good heavens ' What is motoritis ? '

The young man explained

' It is the most expensive disease over invented ; it is a disease from which only the very rich can possibly suffer.' Then he leaned back in his chair. The great specialist became analytically attentive. ' You interest me intensely'; proceed.' ' The ailment— my new ailment— will attack only those people who possess motor cars.'

' Good, good,' said Sir James, patting his fingers together, as though he detected some slightly hopeful symptom in a very bad case. Encouraged, the other continued : ' I propose to establish three forms of the disease : 1 (a) Pleuro-motoritis, for millionaires who possess several cars.

1 (b) Double motoritis, for those whose nerves are 'affected by driving one day in an electric and the next in a petrol car.

' (c) Modified motoritis, for people who wish .to pose as habitual motorists.

' It might be thought well to add motoritis vulgaris, for persons of moderate means who go about in tubes and motor 'buses.' The great man spoke no word. He gazeff vacantly at the ceiling. With a slight tremor in his voice, the young man asked at lengtili : * How does the idea strike you ? ' Again there was a pause.

Slowly Sir James spoke : 'It is the greatest idea of modern times. You, of course, propose curing this— ahem '.—disease by some sort of costly operation.' Then he hesitated before putting the question : ' What sort of operation ? ' Somewhat didactically the otoher man explained -his. system :

' There will be three sorts, ranging from 1000 guineas for pleuro-motontis to 100 guineas for the popular form.' * *

A very proper scale ; it is right that the disease should be brought within the range of all persons who arc reasonably solvent. But lam anxious to hear the nature of the operation. Where do you operate ? ' ' I piopose,' said Dr. Barton-Browne, ' that we shall go into partnership. You shall perform the operations.' Good, good,' said the specialist, in an eminently sound manner.

' I shall myself administer the anaesthetic. When the patient is unconscious I envelop the body with bandages. These are not on any account whatever to be removed for fourteen days. Death would undoubtedly result if the bandages were removed within that period. But when they are removed it will be found that, owing to my improved antiseptic treatment, no mark or Bear of any description remains. It will be impossible to discover the actual Dlace where you have usett the knife ' A smile of such beauty that it amounted almost to holy g.adness suffused the intellectual face of the greatest of all surgeons. 'What do you say to that, Sir James?" The mobne features of the eminent one assumed the orthodox expression of a doctor who has rescued a hopeless patient from the jaws of death. His answer was entirely irrelevant. ' I think you will find Hilda in the drawing-room.' he said.—' Black and "White. 1