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sister-in-law, Lady Gorran, and found she had the biggest sac I ever

saw: it held about two ounces. Well, Mrs. Foljambe had the right

spirit--the genuine hygienic instinct. She couldnt stand her

sister-in-law being a clean, sound woman, and she simply a whited

sepulchre. So she insisted on my operating on her, too. And by George,

sir, she hadnt any sac at all. Not a trace! Not a rudiment!! I was so

taken aback--so interested, that I forgot to take the sponges out, and

was stitching them up inside her when the nurse missed them. Somehow,

I'd made sure she'd have an exceptionally large one. [He sits down on

the couch, squaring his shoulders and shooting his hands out of his

cuffs as he sets his knuckles akimbo].

EMMY [looking in] Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington.

A long and expectant pause follows this announcement. All look to the

door; but there is no Sir Ralph.

RIDGEON [at last] Were is he?

EMMY [looking back] Drat him, I thought he was following me. He's stayed

down to talk to that lady.

RIDGEON [exploding] I told you to tell that lady--[Emmy vanishes].

WALPOLE [jumping up again] Oh, by the way, Ridgeon, that reminds me. Ive

been talking to that poor girl. It's her husband; and she thinks it's

a case of consumption: the usual wrong diagnosis: these damned general

practitioners ought never to be allowed to touch a patient except under

the orders of a consultant. She's been describing his symptoms to me;

and the case is as plain as a pikestaff: bad blood-poisoning. Now she's

poor. She cant afford to have him operated on. Well, you send him to me:

I'll do it for nothing. Theres room for him in my nursing home. I'll put

him straight, and feed him up and make him happy. I like making people

happy. [He goes to the chair near the window].

EMMY [looking in] Here he is.

Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington wafts himself into the room. He is a tall

man, with a head like a tall and slender egg. He has been in his time a

slender man; but now, in his sixth decade, his waistcoat has filled out

somewhat. His fair eyebrows arch good-naturedly and uncritically. He

has a most musical voice; his speech is a perpetual anthem; and he never

tires of the sound of it. He radiates an enormous self-satisfaction,

cheering, reassuring, healing by the mere incompatibility of disease or

anxiety with his welcome presence. Even broken bones, it is said, have

been known to unite at the sound of his voice: he is a born healer, as

independent of mere treatment and skill as any Christian scientist. When

he expands into oratory or scientific exposition, he is as energetic as

Walpole; but it is with a bland, voluminous, atmospheric energy,

which envelops its subject and its audience, and makes interruption or

inattention impossible, and imposes veneration and credulity on all but

the strongest minds. He is known in the medical world as B. B.; and the

envy roused by his success in practice is softened by the conviction

that he is, scientifically considered, a colossal humbug: the fact

being that, though he knows just as much (and just as little) as his

contemporaries, the qualifications that pass muster in common men reveal

their weakness when hung on his egregious personality.

B. B. Aha! Sir Colenso. Sir Colenso, eh? Welcome to the order of

knighthood.

RIDGEON [shaking hands] Thank you, B. B.

B. B. What! Sir Patrick! And how are we to-day? a little chilly? a

little stiff? but hale and still the cleverest of us all. [Sir Patrick

grunts]. What! Walpole! the absent-minded beggar: eh?

WALPOLE. What does that mean?

B. B. Have you forgotten the lovely opera singer I sent you to have that

growth taken off her vocal cords?

WALPOLE [springing to his feet] Great heavens, man, you dont mean to say

you sent her for a throat operation!

B. B. [archly] Aha! Ha ha! Aha! [trilling like a lark as he shakes his

finger at Walpole]. You removed her nuciform sac. Well, well! force of

habit! force of habit! Never mind, ne-e-e-ver mind. She got back her

voice after it, and thinks you the greatest surgeon alive; and so you

are, so you are, so you are.

WALPOLE [in a tragic whisper, intensely serious] Blood-poisoning. I see.

I see. [He sits down again].

SIR PATRICK. And how is a certain distinguished family getting on under

your care, Sir Ralph?

B. B. Our friend Ridgeon will be gratified to hear that I have tried his

opsonin treatment on little Prince Henry with complete success.

RIDGEON [startled and anxious] But how--

B. B. [continuing] I suspected typhoid: the head gardener's boy had

it; so I just called at St Anne's one day and got a tube of your very

excellent serum. You were out, unfortunately.

RIDGEON. I hope they explained to you carefully--

B. B. [waving away the absurd suggestion] Lord bless you, my dear

fellow, I didnt need any explanations. I'd left my wife in the carriage

at the door; and I'd no time to be taught my business by your young

chaps. I know all about it. Ive handled these anti-toxins ever since

they first came out.

RIDGEON. But theyre not anti-toxins; and theyre dangerous unless you use

them at the right time.

B. B. Of course they are. Everything is dangerous unless you take it at

the right time. An apple at breakfast does you good: an apple at bedtime

upsets you for a week. There are only two rules for anti-toxins. First,

dont be afraid of them: second, inject them a quarter of an hour before

meals, three times a day.

RIDGEON [appalled] Great heavens, B. B., no, no, no.

B. B. [sweeping on irresistibly] Yes, yes, yes, Colly. The proof of the

pudding is in the eating, you know. It was an immense success. It acted

like magic on the little prince. Up went his temperature; off to bed I

packed him; and in a week he was all right again, and absolutely immune

from typhoid for the rest of his life. The family were very nice about

it: their gratitude was quite touching; but I said they owed it all to

you, Ridgeon; and I am glad to think that your knighthood is the result.

RIDGEON. I am deeply obliged to you. [Overcome, he sits down on the

chair near the couch].

B. B. Not at all, not at all. Your own merit. Come! come! come! dont

give way.

RIDGEON. It's nothing. I was a little giddy just now. Overwork, I

suppose.

WALPOLE. Blood-poisoning.

B. B. Overwork! Theres no such thing. I do the work of ten men. Am I

giddy? No. NO. If youre not well, you have a disease. It may be a slight

one; but it's a disease. And what is a disease? The lodgment in the

system of a pathogenic germ, and the multiplication of that germ. What

is the remedy? A very simple one. Find the germ and kill it.

SIR PATRICK. Suppose theres no germ?

B. B. Impossible, Sir Patrick: there must be a germ: else how could the

patient be ill?

SIR PATRICK. Can you shew me the germ of overwork?

B. B. No; but why? Why? Because, my dear Sir Patrick, though the germ

is there, it's invisible. Nature has given it no danger signal for us.

These germs--these bacilli--are translucent bodies, like glass, like

water. To make them visible you must stain them. Well, my dear Paddy, do

what you will, some of them wont stain. They wont take cochineal: they

wont take methylene blue; they wont take gentian violet: they wont take

any coloring matter. Consequently, though we know, as scientific

men, that they exist, we cannot see them. But can you disprove their

existence? Can you conceive the disease existing without them? Can you,

for instance, shew me a case of diphtheria without the bacillus?

SIR PATRICK. No; but I'll shew you the same bacillus, without the

disease, in your own throat.

B. B. No, not the same, Sir Patrick. It is an entirely different

bacillus; only the two are, unfortunately, so exactly alike that you

cannot see the difference. You must understand, my dear Sir Patrick,

that every one of these interesting little creatures has an imitator.

Just as men imitate each other, germs imitate each other. There is the

genuine diphtheria bacillus discovered by Loeffler; and there is the

pseudo-bacillus, exactly like it, which you could find, as you say, in

my own throat.

SIR PATRICK. And how do you tell one from the other?

B. B. Well, obviously, if the bacillus is the genuine Loeffler, you have

diphtheria; and if it's the pseudobacillus, youre quite well. Nothing

simpler. Science is always simple and always profound. It is only

the half-truths that are dangerous. Ignorant faddists pick up some

superficial information about germs; and they write to the papers and

try to discredit science. They dupe and mislead many honest and worthy

people. But science has a perfect answer to them on every point.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep; or taste not the Pierian spring.

I mean no disrespect to your generation, Sir Patrick: some of you old

stagers did marvels through sheer professional intuition and clinical

experience; but when I think of the average men of your day, ignorantly

bleeding and cupping and purging, and scattering germs over their

patients from their clothes and instruments, and contrast all that with

the scientific certainty and simplicity of my treatment of the little

prince the other day, I cant help being proud of my own generation:

the men who were trained on the germ theory, the veterans of the great

struggle over Evolution in the seventies. We may have our faults; but at

least we are men of science. That is why I am taking up your treatment,

Ridgeon, and pushing it. It's scientific. [He sits down on the chair

near the couch].

EMMY [at the door, announcing] Dr Blenkinsop.

Dr Blenkinsop is a very different case from the others. He is clearly

not a prosperous man. He is flabby and shabby, cheaply fed and cheaply

clothed. He has the lines made by a conscience between his eyes, and

the lines made by continual money worries all over his face, cut all the

deeper as he has seen better days, and hails his well-to-do colleagues

as their contemporary and old hospital friend, though even in this he

has to struggle with the diffidence of poverty and relegation to the

poorer middle class.

RIDGEON. How are you, Blenkinsop?

BLENKINSOP. Ive come to offer my humble congratulations. Oh dear! all

the great guns are before me.

B. B. [patronizing, but charming] How d'ye do Blenkinsop? How d'ye do?

BLENKINSOP. And Sir Patrick, too [Sir Patrick grunts].

RIDGEON. Youve met Walpole, of course?

WALPOLE. How d'ye do?

BLENKINSOP. It's the first time Ive had that honor. In my poor little

practice there are no chances of meeting you great men. I know nobody

but the St Anne's men of my own day. [To Ridgeon] And so youre Sir

Colenso. How does it feel?

RIDGEON. Foolish at first. Dont take any notice of it.

BLENKINSOP. I'm ashamed to say I havnt a notion what your great

discovery is; but I congratulate you all the same for the sake of old

times.

B. B. [shocked] But, my dear Blenkinsop, you used to be rather keen on

science.

BLENKINSOP. Ah, I used to be a lot of things. I used to have two or

three decent suits of clothes, and flannels to go up the river on

Sundays. Look at me now: this is my best; and it must last till

Christmas. What can I do? Ive never opened a book since I was qualified

thirty years ago. I used to read the medical papers at first; but you

know how soon a man drops that; besides, I cant afford them; and

what are they after all but trade papers, full of advertisements? Ive

forgotten all my science: whats the use of my pretending I havnt? But

I have great experience: clinical experience; and bedside experience is

the main thing, isn't it?

B. B. No doubt; always provided, mind you, that you have a sound

scientific theory to correlate your observations at the bedside. Mere

experience by itself is nothing. If I take my dog to the bedside with

me, he sees what I see. But he learns nothing from it. Why? Because he's

not a scientific dog.

WALPOLE. It amuses me to hear you physicians and general practitioners

talking about clinical experience. What do you see at the bedside but

the outside of the patient? Well: it isnt his outside thats wrong,

except perhaps in skin cases. What you want is a daily familiarity with

people's insides; and that you can only get at the operating table. I

know what I'm talking about: Ive been a surgeon and a consultant for

twenty years; and Ive never known a general practitioner right in his

diagnosis yet. Bring them a perfectly simple case; and they diagnose

cancer, and arthritis, and appendicitis, and every other itis, when

any really experienced surgeon can see that it's a plain case of

blood-poisoning.

BLENKINSOP. Ah, it's easy for you gentlemen to talk; but what would you

say if you had my practice? Except for the workmen's clubs, my patients

are all clerks and shopmen. They darent be ill: they cant afford it. And

when they break down, what can I do for them? You can send your people

to St Moritz or to Egypt, or recommend horse exercise or motoring or

champagne jelly or complete change and rest for six months. I might as

well order my people a slice of the moon. And the worst of it is, I'm

too poor to keep well myself on the cooking I have to put up with.

Ive such a wretched digestion; and I look it. How am I to inspire

confidence? [He sits disconsolately on the couch].

RIDGEON [restlessly] Dont, Blenkinsop: its too painful. The most tragic

thing in the world is a sick doctor.

WALPOLE. Yes, by George: its like a bald-headed man trying to sell a

hair restorer. Thank God I'm a surgeon!

B. B. [sunnily] I am never sick. Never had a day's illness in my life.

Thats what enables me to sympathize with my patients.

WALPOLE [interested] What! youre never ill?

B. B. Never.

WALPOLE. Thats interesting. I believe you have no nuciform sac. If you

ever do feel at all queer, I should very much like to have a look.

B. B. Thank you, my dear fellow; but I'm too busy just now.

RIDGEON. I was just telling them when you came in, Blenkinsop, that I