The Exploits of Elaine Part 4

It was some time after these events that Kennedy, reconstructing what had happened, ran across, in a strange way which I need not tire the reader by telling, a Dr. Haynes, head of the Hillside Sanitarium for Women, whose story I shall relate substantially as we received it from his own lips:

It must have been that same night that a distinguished visitor drove up in a cab to our Hillside Sanitarium, rang the bell and was admitted to my office. I might describe him as a moderately tall, well-built man with a pleasing way about him. Chiefly noticeable, it seems to me, were his mustache and bushy beard, quite medical and foreign.

I am, by the way, the superintending physician, and that night I was sitting with Dr. Thompson, my a.s.sistant, in the office discussing a rather interesting case, when an attendant came in with a card and handed it to me. It read simply, "Dr. Ludwig Reinstrom, Coblenz."

"Here's that Dr. Reinstrom, Thompson, about whom my friend in Germany wrote the other day," I remarked, nodding to the attendant to admit Dr.

Reinstrom.

I might explain that while I was abroad some time ago, I made a particular study of the "Daemmerschlaf"--otherwise, the "twilight sleep," at Freiburg where it was developed and at other places in Germany where the subject had attracted great attention. I was much impressed and had imported the treatment to Hillside.

While we waited I reached into my desk and drew out the letter to which I referred, which ended, I recall:

"As Dr. Reinstrom is in America, he will probably call on you. I am sure you will be glad to know him.

"With kindest regards, I am,

"Fraternally yours,

"EMIL SCHWARZ, M. D.,

"Director, Leipsic Inst.i.tute of Medicine."

"Most happy to meet you, Dr. Reinstrom," I greeted the new arrival, as he entered our office.

For several minutes we sat and chatted of things medical here and abroad.

"What is it, Doctor," I asked finally, "that interests you most in America?"

"Oh," he replied quickly with an expressive gesture, "it is the broadmindedness with which you adopt the best from all over the world, regardless of prejudice. For instance, I am very much interested in the new twilight sleep. Of course you have borrowed it largely from us, but it interests me to see whether you have modified it with practice. In fact I have come to the Hillside Sanitarium particularly to see it used. Perhaps we may learn something from you."

It was most gracious and both Dr. Thompson and myself were charmed by our visitor. I reached over and touched a call-b.u.t.ton and our head nurse entered from a rear room.

"Are there any operations going on now?" I asked.

She looked mechanically at her watch. "Yes, there are two cases, now, I think," she answered.

"Would you like to follow our technique, Doctor?" I asked, turning to Dr. Reinstorm.

"I should be delighted," he acquiesced.

A moment later we pa.s.sed down the corridor of the Sanitarium, still chatting. At the door of a ward I spoke to the attendant who indicated that a patient was about to be anesthetized, and Reinstrom and I entered the room.

There, in perfect quiet, which is an essential part of the treatment, were several women patients lying in bed in the ward. Before us two nurses and a doctor were in attendance on one.

I spoke to the Doctor, Dr. Holmes, by the way, who bowed politely to the distinguished Dr. Reinstrom, then turned quickly to his work.

"Miss Sears," he asked of one of the nurses, "will you bring me that hypodermic needle? How are you getting on, Miss Stern?" to the other who was scrubbing the patient's arm with antiseptic soap and water, thoroughly sterilizing the skin.

"You will see, Dr. Reinstrom." I interposed in a low tone, "that we follow in the main your Freiburg treatment. We use scopolamin and narkophin."

I held up the bottle, as I said it, a rather peculiar shaped bottle, too.

"And the pain?" he asked.

"Practically the same as in your experience abroad. We do not render the patient unconscious, but prevent her from remembering anything that goes on."

Dr. Holmes, the attending physician, was just starting the treatment.

Filling his hypodermic, he selected a spot on the patient's arm, where it had been scrubbed and sterilized, and injected the narcotic.

"How simply you do it all, here!" exclaimed Reinstrom in surprise and undisguised admiration. "You Americans are wonderful!"

"Come--see a patient who is just recovering," I added, much flattered by the praise, which, from a German physician, meant much.

Reinstrom followed me out of the door and we entered a private room of the hospital where another woman patient lay in bed carefully watched by a nurse.

"How do you do?" I nodded to the nurse in a modulated tone. "Everything progressing favorably?"

"Perfectly," she returned, as Reinstrom, Haynes and myself formed a little group about the bedside of the unconscious woman.

"And you say they have no recollection of anything that happens?" asked Reinstrom.

"Absolutely none--if the treatment is given properly," I replied confidently.

I picked up a piece of bandage which was the handiest thing about me and tied it quite tightly about the patient's arm.

As we waited, the patient, who was gradually coming from under the drug, roused herself.

"What is that--it hurts!" she said putting her hand on the bandage I had tied tightly.

"That is all right. Just a moment. I'll take it off. Don't you remember it?" I asked.

She shook her head. I smiled at Reinstrom.

"You see, she has no recollection of my tying the bandage on her arm,"

I pointed out.

"Wonderful!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Reinstrom as we left the room.

All the way back to the office he was loud in his praises and thanked us most heartily, as he put on his hat and coat and shook hands a cordial good-bye.

Now comes the strange part of my story. After Reinstrom had gone, Dr.

Holmes, the attending physician of the woman whom we had seen anesthetized, missed his syringe and the bottle of scopolamine.

"Miss Sears," he asked rather testily, "what have you done with the hypodermic and the scopolamine?"

"Nothing," she protested.

"You must have done something."