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"Well, there was only one last week which was new
to me. I had been engaged by some people of the name
of Silcoe. When the trouble came round I went
myself, for they would not hear of an assistant. The
husband who was a policeman, was sitting at the head
of the bed on the further side. `This won't do,'
said I. `Oh yes, doctor, it must do,' said she.
`It's quite irregular and he must go,' said I. `It's
that or nothing,' said she. `I won't open my mouth
or stir a finger the whole night,' said he. So it
ended by my allowing him to remain, and there he sat
for eight hours on end. She was very good over the
matter, but every now and again HE would fetch a
hollow groan, and I noticed that he held his right
hand just under the sheet all the time, where I had
no doubt that it was clasped by her left. When it
was all happily over, I looked at him and his face
was the colour of this cigar ash, and his head had
dropped on to the edge of the pillow. Of course I
thought he had fainted with emotion, and I was just
telling myself what I thought of myself for having
been such a fool as to let him stay there, when
suddenly I saw that the sheet over his hand was all
soaked with blood; I whisked it down, and there was
the fellow's wrist half cut through. The woman
had one bracelet of a policeman's handcuff over her
left wrist and the other round his right one. When
she had been in pain she had twisted with all her
strength and the iron had fairly eaten into the bone
of the man's arm. `Aye, doctor,' said she, when she
saw I had noticed it. `He's got to take his share as
well as me. Turn and turn,' said she."
"Don't you find it a very wearing branch of the
profession?" asks Foster after a pause.
"My dear fellow, it was the fear of it that drove
me into lunacy work."
"Aye, and it has driven men into asylums who
never found their way on to the medical staff. I was
a very shy fellow myself as a student, and I know
what it means."
"No joke that in general practice," says the
alienist.
"Well, you hear men talk about it as though it
were, but I tell you it's much nearer tragedy. Take
some poor, raw, young fellow who has just put up his
plate in a strange town. He has found it a trial all
his life, perhaps, to talk to a woman about lawn
tennis and church services. When a young man IS
shy he is shyer than any girl. Then down comes an
anxious mother and consults him upon the most
intimate family matters. `I shall never go to that
doctor again,' says she afterwards. `His manner is
so stiff and unsympathetic.' Unsympathetic!
Why, the poor lad was struck dumb and paralysed. I
have known general practitioners who were so shy that
they could not bring themselves to ask the way in the
street. Fancy what sensitive men like that must
endure before they get broken in to medical practice.
And then they know that nothing is so catching as
shyness, and that if they do not keep a face of
stone, their patient will be covered with confusion.
And so they keep their face of stone, and earn the
reputation perhaps of having a heart to correspond.
I suppose nothing would shake YOUR nerve, Manson."
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