Merely the Patient by Henry Howard Harper

The next time I saw the doctor he handed me another batch of envelopes, which I apologetically declined. Having just come from a very disagreeable and seemingly unnecessary ordeal, for which I had waited several hours, I was in a state of hostile rebellion. It was like being repeatedly put on trial for crimes of which you are innocent; and I decided that as long as I could get no information whatever about my kidney, or indeed anything else, it were better to let the remainder of my organs rest as long as they were at ease.

"Doctor," said I, "I've already explained to you what my trouble is, and if you are putting me through these third degree maneuvers merely for the sake of killing time while the X-ray pictures are being developed, I prefer to choose some less heroic diversion. I'm not concealing any ailment from you and I don't care to waste any more of my time or yours hunting for something that seems to bother you more than it does me."

The doctor protested vigorously; he seemed to regard my attitude as nothing less than mutiny. He declared that all these tests, and a great many more, were absolutely necessary to complete the records of my case; and that if I refused to continue there was grave danger of annulling all the good that had been accomplished. I said that if any important discovery had been made I'd like to be let in on the secret. That, he said, would be contrary to the rules. I insisted that being the owner of the kidney, I was entitled to know something about the reasons, or at least the results, of all this grilling process; and as for the sealed verdicts of their examinations, they meant nothing whatever to me; that what I came there for was to have my kidney X-rayed, not to be fluoroscoped and dissected from head to foot. Seeing that the reports on all the tests and examinations were written in medical terms, and that they were alike inaccessible and incomprehensible to me, I was not disposed to contribute the additional time and money necessary to make a complete set of historical records in which I had no interest or understanding.

"But our records are a valuable contribution to medical science," he argued.

"In that case," said I, "those who are interested in such matters can provide their own subjects for clinical experimentation. As for me, my tastes run in other channels."

At this point I am reminded that one day while waiting near one of the appointment desks I overheard a spirited conversation between two patients who were trying to figure out why it was that for ten days they had both been taking the same identical examinations, one for a swelling in the ear, the other for a dislocated knee-cap. Finally one of them reached the conclusion that "in a laundry all shirts, whether dirty or clean, are run through the same process."

Although I fell somewhat short of the graduating point, I went far enough to discover that this great research-academy for bodily ailments is not devoid of interest for those of boundless patience and physical endurance, who have a penchant for scientific exploration. It is a tremendous human dissecting organization which runs with the precision of clockwork and is fed daily by hundreds of recruits from every state in the union and every civilized country on earth. It is the Mecca for thousands of people who enjoy searching their systems for the seat of some indefinite, unlocatable disorder, either real or imaginary, and for all such persons it must be a satisfying resort, since it provides every known mechanism and device for exploring, testing and tormenting the human anatomy. And those who survive the entire course have the recompense of knowing they have been thoroughly castor-oiled and overhauled.

After much persuasion on my part, and many expressions of surprise and regret on the part of the diagnostician, I finally succeeded in arranging an appointment with the chief urologist for the next day. From the appointed time I waited two or three hours, expecting the while to get a reprimand for my stubbornness; but to my surprise the distinguished Doctor Braasch greeted me as cordially as if he were going to present me with a diploma of good health and a magna cum laude degree for good behavior. Though his geniality appeared to lack nothing in sincerity, I had a strange presentiment that he had something "up his sleeve"; and with some anxiety I inquired what my examinations and blood tests had disclosed. At this his countenance became grave. So did mine.