A Distant Shore by Kate Hewitt

Author:Kate Hewitt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: burma, christian, saga, boston, romance, adventure, historical

The Bulfinch Operating Theatre was buzzing with surgeons, medical students, newspaper men and more than a few curious gawkers as Horace Wells prepared to take the stage to demonstrate the first public use of ether as an anesthetic. The operation was to be a tooth extraction, which should be simple for Wells since he had trained as a dentist.

Even so, as he stood to the side of the stage waiting for Wells to begin, Ian felt a deep-seated pang of uneasiness and even of fear. Every eye would be trained on Wells as he performed the extraction... if it failed, it would be tomorrow’s joke in the newspapers, or worse.

He studied Wells discreetly. His eyes looked bloodshot and a little wild, and his hair and clothing were both in some disarray, his coat stained on the front, his cravat crooked.

Caroline’s words echoed in Ian’s mind. If Mr. Wells cannot perform the operation, then you must do it.

He’d considered the matter endlessly for the last few weeks, yet had reached no satisfactory answer. He’d attempted to compose a letter to Wells in Hartford, but nothing he said seemed adequate. If he suggested he perform the operation, Wells would think he was trying to steal the glory for himself. And Wells, Ian acknowledged with a shaft of recrimination, might even be right. He’d worked on the experiments with ether for five years. He’d contributed just as much to the cause as Wells had, yet it would be Wells who would receive the adulation and praise if the operation succeeded.

And if it didn’t?

It would be Ian who received the condemnation for allowing the procedure to go forward in the prestigious Bulfinch Operating Theatre. Either way, he suffered—and yet he told himself it didn’t really matter to him if Wells received all the praise. The far more important thing was the acceptance of ether as an anesthetic by the medical community, the possibility of operations being carried out that were now nothing more than a distant dream. Conditions that were a death sentence could be treated, and in a far more humane way. How could he begrudge Wells anything, if all that came to pass?

Ian glanced at him again, saw Wells’s hands tremble as he attempted to straighten his cravat. His unease deepened to something close to panic. A man could not operate, or even extract a tooth, with shaky hands. Ian didn’t know what was the matter with Wells, if his condition was indeed the result of an addiction to ether, but he could see clearly that the man was not in the proper frame of mind—or condition. His mind made up, Ian approached him.

“Mr. Wells, are you sure you are all right?”

Wells glanced at him sharply, eyes bright with suspicion. “Of course I am. Why should I not be?”

Ian tried to temper his words with a smile. “It is only you look a bit unwell.”

Wells’s lip curled in a sneer. “How now, Campbell? Are you actually attempting to dissuade me from performing the extraction at this late hour? Let me guess.

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