Georg Letham Read Online Free PDF

experiments that would answer it one way or the other.
    In my office I discharged my tasks as one discharges a duty. I neglected none of the imperatives of antisepsis when I performed the two operations mentioned above. And yet! And yet!
    The first was an appendectomy in the “cold” or nonacute stage, generally an entirely safe intervention. Nevertheless a septic fever resembling streptococcal fever had already developed on the evening following the operation. What was inexplicable to my assistant was the appearance of virulent streptococci in the blood of the patient. I will keep it short. We lost the patient. Had I unwittingly transmitted dangerous microorganisms? My wife tried to console me. She took an interest in my successes and failures as a physician. I could not be silent, the thing touched her. I forced myself to stay away from the laboratory for a few weeks. Everything went splendidly in the interval. Even technically difficult operations were successful, and my patients marveled at my “gentle, blessed touch”!
    But the day came when it was necessary to transfer the costly and painstakingly prepared scarlet-fever streptococcus cultures to fresh medium. Otherwise these organisms, which were living in the old culture fluid and continuously excreting toxins in the incubator, maintained at a uniform thirty-seven degrees, would eventually havepoisoned, sterilized, exterminated themselves. They had to be settled on virgin soil. This job too I performed with extreme care. I used rubber gloves to handle the glass rods tipped with flame-sterilized platinum loops when I transferred tiny drops of the old culture into vessels containing fresh nutrient. My clandestine visit to the laboratory might have taken six or eight minutes at most. The cab was waiting by the side entrance of the Pathology Institute with its meter running, which is why I am able to estimate the time.
    Moreover I was firmly resolved not to perform any operations during the next few days. I had, of course, washed my hands, my body, with the greatest possible fastidiousness following this visit to the laboratory, had even had my hair cut. Out of pure self-interest alone, I had done everything I could in order not to be infectious. As ill luck would have it, I must now repeat those ominous words, my wife welcomed me home with the news that there had been a call about a friend of my brother and sister, a woman. There was severe pelvic bleeding. My name came to mind for many reasons.
    This was the second calamity. This time I could not be said to have done anything unwittingly. I would have liked to say no. But my wife pressed me; my siblings, who otherwise lived their own lives just as they let me live mine, besieged me with entreaties, particularly my sister. I wanted to have my assistant do the operation. Objections all around. He had so little experience, he was heavy-handed, etc., and most of all: no one wanted an outsider to know too much about the operation. I gave in and performed it. Again a minor, ten-minute procedure, assisted only by the clinical nurse, as, in view of its nature, we wished to prevent the assistant from finding out about it. For the law is not for such things. I knew the patient, a pretty, Rubenesque, golden blonde individual.She was a widow, prominent in society–she wished to avoid a scandal, had to avoid one. I did not understand it entirely, but I complied with her fervent request. Misplaced compassion! The man involved did not show himself.
    This time I was not as calm as I had been after the appendectomy. I went out again to the clinic late in the evening or at night.
    My wife was waiting down at the gate in her car. She had on her lap a small, long-haired, wheat-colored dog, a kind of Pekingese, the pet of her daughter, who was traveling. As I stood beside the bed of my patient, still asleep after the anesthesia, I looked down at the street. My wife seemed to be getting along well with the little dog. Her