Butcher by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates [Oates, Joyce Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2024-04-12T17:00:00+00:00

Fever

FROM THE CHRONICLE OF A PHYSICIAN’S LIFE

BY SILAS ALOYSIUS WEIR, M.D.

WHAT! Is the little deaf-mute malingering on us, already?”—so I joked to Gretel, for such was my manner, in dealing with female subordinates, to put them at their ease; though, indeed, my blood had run cold at this new development, & my teeth fairly chattered with alarm.

For, it seemed, Brigit Kinealy had been stricken overnight with a sudden malaise & a high temperature. Fortunately, Gretel was attending to her, in Brigit’s very small but private quarters, when I arrived.

It was heartrending to me, to see my prize patient, whose cure had been a point of pride for me, lying so very still on a narrow cot, beneath a thin sheet; shivering, even as her skin burned with fever, though ghastly pale. Nervously I joked to Gretel, I had seen corpses in the morgue with a healthier skin color than this. But Gretel seemed scarcely to hear my well-intentioned banter, in her concern for the stricken patient.

Like any good nurse, Gretel had been placing wetted cloths on Brigit’s face & chest, to arrest the progress of the fever; also, to keep away flies & mosquitoes, which were a plague in the Laboratory, as through the Asylum generally, along with roaches & rodents.

Very gingerly, I touched the back of my hand against Brigit Kinealy’s brow. It was a measure of the patient’s illness, she made no reaction, & her bluish, shut eyelids scarcely quivered.

Fever! My first thought was bilious fever. (Contracted from my most recent experimental subjects, whose lifeless bodies had been carried out of the Laboratory, by the back stairway, only a few hours before in the still of the previous night.)

In fact, whatever was meant by bilious fever in the 1850s was never clear. No doubt, several fevers were conjoined, including malaria, yellow fever, & dengue. All that “bilious” meant was “bile.” Not all of these fevers were contagious, & not all were predictable. Some were lethal, & some were harmless; yet, their initial symptoms were near-identical.

Since I had (evidently) healed the fistula in Brigit’s bladder, I saw no reason for re-examining that surgery, to spare my fevered patient the ordeal of a pelvic examination, & myself the ordeal of the examiner. I ordered quinine drops to be administered to Brigit, which seemed most sensible; as for bloodletting, which most of my physician-colleagues would have prescribed for fever, I hesitated to proceed. Brigit was already in such a weakened state, & the albino tincture of her skin so suggested anemia, I could not think that the fever was caused by an excess of heated blood.

“You will be well soon now, Brigit! Quinine is the cure—as we have learned from our experiment.”

Yet, hours passed, a day & a night, & Brigit’s fever did not lessen.

To quinine, I added a dollop of Saint-John’s-wort, & powdered belladonna, to quicken the patient’s (listless) heartbeat. These medications, Gretel duly administered to the patient.

Still, Brigit did not seem to be improving.

Lying motionless beneath the sheet, scarcely

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