Читать книгу Life is an Adventure - R. J. Manion - Страница 14

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After a year of hospital work as an interne, my father urged me to continue my studies for a year abroad, suggesting a course at the University of Edinburgh. I sailed from New York on one of the big liners, incidentally spending a couple of days in New York City, the first of very many visits. On my way to Edinburgh I dropped off the steamer at Queenstown, making a short tour up through Ireland, passing through Cork—it and Tipperary the home, a little over a century ago, of my ancestors on both sides—visiting the Lakes of Killarney, Dublin, Belfast, and other interesting spots. It was my first visit to a land whose sad history as a youth I knew very intimately, and had listened to John Redmond, William O’Brien, T. P. O’Connor and others, tell of its wrongs on their tours of our continent. As a consequence, like many young Irish-Canadians, I took a most enthusiastic interest in Irish affairs—more, indeed, than at that time in Canadian—not hesitating to lay all the blame for the unhappy condition at England’s door. But, long since, I came to the conclusion that Canada has quite enough problems to absorb the attention of all young Canadians, although they need not fail to keep a corner of their heart for the land whence their forefathers came. Added to this conviction is that other one, which fair-minded Irish-Canadians must have adopted in the last ten years—that England is not to blame at present for troubles which still seem to beset the Emerald Isle.

Edinburgh gave me one of the most interesting periods of my early life. Not only was the University of Edinburgh then, as it is now, a splendid teaching institution, but the city itself had historic associations which added greatly to it charm to one from a newer portion of the world. It was my first visit to old historic lands, and what thrills came to me wandering from the Castle to Holyrood, traversing the High Street which had been trod three hundred years before by that charming and pathetic figure, Mary Queen of Scots, and some of her admirers, perchance her lovers! Her beauty, and the sadness of her life and death, makes her one of the most fascinating female characters in history, and one would be hard-headed indeed did he not feel a pang of regret that one so lovely should have seen so much tragedy. How angry one would get in passing old St. Giles Church, to think of the somewhat ill-tempered and puritanical tirades which John Knox used to hurl at the Queen and her companions! No doubt morally he was right, but to a young man in his early twenties, who fain would have been one of her rescuers, the preachings of this hard-headed ecclesiastic appeared but the unreasonable ravings of one who placed religion higher than Christianity. Nearly thirty years later these memories were revived by a visit, while in Geneva, to the little church in “the old town” at which John Knox began his rigid teachings.

The training at Edinburgh was exceptionally good, though in some ways the surgical training was not quite so up-to-date as was the medical. Some of the surgeons, such as Stiles and Alexis Thompson, were quite the equal of any surgeons one could find in any clinic in the world; but others who were senior to Thompson, while excellent surgeons, were to a certain extent old-fogeyish and their methods often old-fashioned.

At that date in Edinburgh the anaesthetic used for operations was chloroform, whereas in most clinics everywhere else in the world ether (not by the “open method,” but by the “closed method”) was being employed, as it was much safer. But in Edinburgh the most daring chances seemed to be taken in regard to anaesthetics, some comparatively young student being often called down from the observation benches, and asked to give a chloroform anaesthetic to a patient who had just been brought in—an exceedingly dangerous custom. During my general practice I have seen patients on a few occasions collapse while being given chloroform, and almost pass out in spite of the most strenuous efforts to revive them. I have had the good fortune never to see a patient die under an anaesthetic except once, and that occurred in my house-surgeon days when an outside physician was giving the anaesthetic; the patient passed into a shocked collapse from which she did not recover. No accidents occurred during my term in Scotland, but one often wondered why they did not, for chloroform seemed to be treated almost with contempt, in spite of the fact that it is considered a very dangerous type of anaesthetic, and is now replaced everywhere by some of the newer methods in which it has no part.

My suite of rooms was on Marchmont Road, not far from the Royal Infirmary, near a group of other Canadians who were taking post-graduate courses in the old Scotch city. We were given very generous privileges in the wards during the evenings, where we were permitted to make practically any examinations we chose, enabling us to study various diseases at first hand. It was an excellent training, and, being of a somewhat impatient disposition, I decided to try the examinations for my degree at the end of four months, a rather short period, as the usual custom was to take six, nine or twelve months. But, having my gold-medalist graduation and my year’s interneship back of me, I resolved to make the attempt. In order to make reasonably sure of it, a tutor was advisable—one who knew the Edinburgh system thoroughly, and who could consequently give suggestions that might be of great use. Saying “good-bye” to a friend in Toronto, he reminded me that he had been in Edinburgh and had gone to a clever old tutor. My friend’s last words, as I stepped through the door of the station to take my train, were to remind me “not to forget to study with Old Mack,” and he handed me the tutor’s full name and address. He had not explained why he thought Old Mack such a good teacher, and after engaging him one was somewhat puzzled as to why he had praised him so highly, as the old man did not impress one at all as in any way outstanding. He was a queer old chap. I can see him yet with his back to the fireplace, absorbing, we thought, all the heat, while his students sat shivering in the raw cold of an Edinburgh autumn. His suggestions were given in a hesitating way, and one came to the conclusion that he was not sure of his statements. I thought seriously of throwing him over, but as it was too late to get another tutor on my hurried plan, I decided to stick with him until after the examinations, when finally I discovered why this teacher had been suggested to me by my friend. It was rather an extraordinary reason. Ten days or so before the examinations the old man stated that he had studied the examination papers for many years and he felt that he had a very good gift at guessing the questions that would be put before us.

“I suppose you chaps,” he would say, “know thoroughly the formation of the eyeball,” and he would go on to give us a somewhat detailed review of it. Then he would perhaps jump to a description of the sciatic nerve; or, if it was our medical hour, he might urge on us vividly the possibility of having a question about chorea, or epilepsy. Certain of these suggestions he recurred to and doubly impressed upon us, while partly burying them in other subjects which he mentioned much less emphatically. To our startled surprise, when the examinations came round, nearly all the questions which he had particularly emphasized were on the examination paper, and we had no doubt whatsoever that the old man in some way had access to these papers. In discussing it afterwards, some of us came to the conclusion that he must have bribed the caretaker of one of the buildings in whose safe-keeping the papers were left, for otherwise he could not have guessed correctly so often.

In spite of his assistance, however, I had a failure for the first time in my life, a failure for which I have always been very grateful, for too consistent success may spoil a youth’s good sense. In the written examinations and most of the orals I did exceedingly well, probably to a certain extent due to the information which Old Mack offered us, but largely due to the fact that it was my custom as usual to work during working hours, and play in playtime. However, one of the older professors of surgery, one who was a high-up officer in the University of Edinburgh at that time, gave me a terrible flaying on my surgery oral. Oral examinations had always been easy for me up to that time, because I was possessed of a good deal of self-confidence, could express myself reasonably well, and usually gave to my examiners the impression of knowing a good deal more about the subject than I in reality did. Yet it is likely that had I known Gray’s Anatomy from cover to cover, and surgery even better than he himself, it was predestined that I should not pass. Possibly this was a foolish boyish notion, yet it stays with me still. My conviction is that this old professor decided that it was not only impertinence on my part to try these examinations at the end of a few months, but it was not giving a fair financial return either to the city or to the university to walk away with my degrees in that short period! At any rate he gave me an exceedingly “rough ride,” and I realized in the midst of it that he was out to “pluck” me, as his whole method showed it. He would pick up a surgical instrument which had perhaps been in the infirmary for generations, and if I were able to name the instrument he would then ask me who invented it, which question I probably could not answer. Then he would rake me fore and aft in a most insulting manner until he got my ire aroused, and I said things to him that I never had said to a teacher previously in my life. I failed in the examination, which meant that one had a wait of another three months to try it again; and as surgery included a number of other subjects, a failure in this branch of it meant taking the whole group over again.

The failure was good for me. In addition to the reason already given, it detained me in Edinburgh for another three months, giving me a far better foundation-knowledge of my work than I otherwise would have had. At the end of that time I took the examinations which were necessary, and once more nearly “took the count” from the same professor who had given me such a tussle in my previous examinations. However, I had done two things which saved me, one of them being to learn the name and history of every instrument in the Royal Infirmary, and the other to discontinue my classes with Old Mack, as my conclusion was definite that he was of no particular use.