Olympian Nights

Æsculapius, M.D.

We had not gone very far along when the pain in my side became poignant and I called out of the window to Sambo: 

“Sammy, is there a doctor anywhere on the way out to the Zoo?” I asked.

“Yassir,” he replied, slowing down a trifle.  “We gotter go right by de doh ob Dr. Skilapius.”

“Doctor who?” I asked—­the name was new to me.

“’Tain’t Skill-apius,” growled the boy behind, who seemed rather jealous that I had taken no notice of him.  “It’s Eee-skill-apius.”

“Oh,” said I, beginning to catch their drift.  “Dr. Æsculapius.  Is that what you are trying to say?”

“Yassir,” said both boys.  “Dass de man.”

“Well, stop at his office a moment,” said I.  “I’m feeling a trifle ill.”

In a few minutes we drew up before a large door to the right of the corridor before which there hung a shingle marked in large gilt letters: 

+-----------------------------------+
|                                   |
|         ÆSCULAPIUS, M.D.          |
|                                   |
|   Office Hours:  10 to 12.         |
|                                   |
|                        Tuesdays.  |
|                                   |
+-----------------------------------+

I knocked at the door and was promptly admitted.

“I wish to see the doctor,” said I.

“This is Monday, sir,” the maid replied—­I couldn’t quite place her, but she seemed rather above her station and was stunningly beautiful.

“What of that?” I demanded, as fiercely as I could, considering how pretty the maid was.

“The doctor can only be seen on Tuesdays,” said she.  “It’s on the door.”

“But I’m sick,” I cried.  “Very sick, indeed.”

“No doubt,” she replied, with a shrug of her shoulders that I found very fetching.  “Else you would not have come.  But you are not so sick that you can’t wait until to-morrow, or if you are, you might as well die, because the doctor won’t take a case he can’t think over a week.”

“Nice arrangement, that,” said I, scornfully.  “It may do very well for immortals, but for a mortal it’s pretty poor business.”

The maid’s manner underwent an immediate change.

[Illustration:  “‘THEN YOU MUST DIE’”]

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, making me a courtesy.  “I did not know you were a mortal.  I presumed you were a minor god.  The doctor will see you at once.”

I was ushered into the consulting-room immediately—­in fact, too quickly.  I wanted to thank the pretty maid for taking me for an immortal.  There was no time for this, however, for in a moment Æsculapius himself appeared.

“You must pardon Alcestis,” he said, after the first greetings were over.  “She is new to the business and doesn’t know a god from a hole in the ground.  She presumed you were immortal and did not realize the emergency.”

“That’s all right, doctor,” said I, glad to learn who the entrancing person at the door was.  “I’ve called to see you because—­”

“Pray be silent,” the doctor interrupted, holding his hand up in admonition.  “Let me discover your symptoms for myself.  It is the surer method.  Physicians in your world are frequently led astray by placing too much reliance upon what their patients tell them.  I have devised a new system. Believe nothing the patient says. See?  If a man tells me he has a headache, I send him to a chiropodist.  If his ankle pains him, I send him to an oculist.  If he says his chest is oppressed, I have him treated for spinal meningitis; and an alleged pain in the back my assistants cure by placing a mustard plaster on the throat.”

“Then your medical principles are based on what, doctor?” I asked, somewhat amused.

“A simple motto which prevails among you mortals:  ’All men are liars’—­’Omnes homines mendaces sunt.’  It is safer than your accepted methods below.  A sick man is the last man in the universe to describe his symptoms accurately.  The mere fact that he is ill distorts his judgment.  Therefore, I never allow it.  If I can’t find out for myself what is the matter with a patient, I give up the case.”

“And the patient dies?” I suggested.

“Not if he is an immortal,” he replied, quietly.  “Come over here,” he added, indicating a spot near the window where there was a strong light.  I went, and Æsculapius, taking a pair of eye-glasses from a cabinet in one corner of his apartment, placed them on the bridge of his nose.

“Now look out of the window,” said he.  “To the left.”

I obeyed at once.  What I saw may not be described.  I shrank back in horror, for I saw so much real suffering that my own trouble grew less in intensity.

“Now look me straight in the eye,” said Æsculapius, an amused smile playing about his lips.

I turned my vision straight upon his glasses and was abashed.  I averted my glance.

“Nonsense,” said he, taking me by the shoulders.  “Look at my pupils—­straight—­don’t be afraid—­there!  That’s it.  These glasses won’t hurt you, and, after all, I’m not very terrible,” he added, genially.

It required an effort, but I made it, although, in so doing, I seemed to be turning my soul inside out for his inspection.

“H’m,” breathed Æsculapius.  “Rather serious.  You think you have appendicitis.”

“Have I?” I cried.

Æsculapius laughed. “Have you?” he asked.  “What do you think you think?”

“I think I have,” said I, my heart growing faint at the very thought I thought I was thinking.

“You are at least sure of your convictions,” said Æsculapius.  “Now, as a matter of fact, the thoughts your thoughtful nature has induced you to think are utterly valueless.  You have a pain in your side?”

“Yes,” said I.  “And a very painful pain in my side—­and I am not putting on any side in my pain either,” I added.

“No doubt,” said Æsculapius.  “But are you sure it is in your side, or isn’t it your chest that aches a trifle, eh?”

“Not much,” said I, growing doubtful on the subject.

“Still it aches,” said he.

“Yes,” I answered, the pain in my side weakening in favor of one in my chest.  “It does.”  And it really did, like the deuce.

“Now about that pain in your chest,” said Æsculapius.  “Isn’t it rather higher up—­in your throat, instead of your chest?”

My throat began to hurt, and abominably.  Every particle of it throbbed with pain, and my chest was immediately relieved.

“I think,” said I, weakly, “that the pain is rather in my throat than in my chest.”

“But your side doesn’t ache at all?” suggested Æsculapius.

I had forgotten my side altogether.

“Not a bit,” said I; and it didn’t.

“So far, so good,” said the doctor.  “Now, my friend, about this throat trouble of yours.  Do you think you have diphtheria, or merely toothache?”

I hadn’t thought of toothache before, but as soon as the doctor mentioned it, a pang went through my lower jaw, and my larynx seemed all right again.

“Well, doctor,” said I, “as a matter of fact, the pain does seem to be in my wisdom teeth.”

“So-called,” said he, quietly.  “More tooth than wisdom, generally.  And not in your throat?” continued the doctor.

[Illustration:  I VISIT ÆSCULAPIUS]

“Not a bit of it,” said I. My throat seemed strong enough for a political campaign in which I was principal speaker.  “It’s all in my teeth.”

“Upper or lower?” he asked, with a laugh, and then he gazed fixedly at me.

I had not realized that I had upper teeth until he spoke, and a shudder went through me as a semicircle of pain shot through my upper jaw.

“Upper,” I retorted, with some surliness.

“Verging a trifle on your cheekbones, and thence to the optic nerve,” he said, calmly, still gazing into my soul.  “I’ll try your sight.  Look at that card over there, and tell me—­”

“What nonsense is this, doctor?” I cried, angry at his airy manner and manifest control over my symptoms.  “There is nothing the matter with my eyes.  They’re as good as any one of the million eyes of your friend the Argus.”

“Then what, in the name of Jupiter, is the matter with you?” he ejaculated, elevating his eyebrows.

“Nothing at all,” said I, sulkily.

Æsculapius threw himself on the sofa and roared with laughter.

“Perfectly splendid!” he said, when he had recovered from his mirth.  “Perfectly splendid!  You are the best example of the value of my system I’ve had in a long time.  Now let me show you something,” he added.  “Put these glasses on.”

He took the glasses from his nose and put them astride of mine, and lead me before a mirror—­a cheval-glass arrangement that stood in one corner of the room.

“Now look yourself straight in the eye,” said he.

I did so, and truly it was as if I looked upon the page of a book printed in the largest and clearest type.  I hesitate to say what I saw written there, since the glass was strong enough to reach not only the mind itself, but further into the very depths of my subself-consciousness.  On the surface, man thinks well of himself; this continues in modified intensity to his self-consciousness, but the fool does not live who, in his subself-consciousness, the Holy of Holies of Realization, does not know that he is a fool.

“Take ’em off,” I cried, for they seemed to burn into the very depths of my soul.

“That isn’t necessary,” said Æsculapius, kindly.  “Just turn your eyes away from the glass a moment and they won’t bother you.  I want to cure this trouble of yours.”

I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and the tense condition of my nerves was immediately relieved.

“Feel better right away, eh?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“So I thought,” he said.  “You’ve momentarily given up self-contemplation.  Now lower your gaze.  Look at your chest a moment.”

Just what were the properties of the glass I do not know, nor do I know how one’s chest should look, but, as I looked down, I found that just as I could penetrate to the depths of my mind through my eyes, so was it possible for me to inspect myself physically.

“Nothing the matter there, eh?” said Æsculapius.

“Not that I can see,” said I.

“Nor I,” said he.  “Now, if you think there is anything the matter with you anywhere else,” he added, “you are welcome to use the glasses as long as you see fit.”

I took a sneaking glance at my right side and was immediately made aware of the fact that all was well with me there, and that all my trouble had come from my ill-advised “wondering” whether that Midas omelet would bother me or not.

“These glasses are wonderful,” said I.

“They are a great help,” said Æsculapius.

“And do you always permit your patients to put them on?” I asked.

“Not always,” said he.  “Sometimes people really have something the matter with them.  More often, of course, they haven’t.  It would never do to let a really sick man see his condition.  If they are ill, I can see at once what is the matter by means of these spectacles, and can, of course, prescribe.  If they are not, there is no surer means of effecting a cure than putting these on the patient’s nose and letting him see for himself that he is all right.”

“They have all the quality of the X-ray light,” I suggested, turning my gaze upon an iron safe in the corner of the room, which immediately disclosed its contents.

“They are X-ray glasses,” said Æsculapius.  “In a good light you can see through anything with ’em on.  I have lenses of the same kind in my window, and when you came up I looked at you through the window-pane and saw at once that there was nothing the matter with you.”

“I wish our earthly doctors had glasses like these,” I ventured, taking them off, for truly I was beginning to fancy a strain.

“They have—­or at least they have something quite as good,” said Æsculapius.  “They are all my disciples, and in the best instances they can see through the average patient without them.  They have insight.  You don’t believe you deceive your physician, do you?”

“I have sometimes thought so,” said I, not realizing the trap the doctor was setting.

“How foolish!” he cried.  “Why should you wish to?”

I was covered with confusion.

“Never mind,” said Æsculapius, smiling pleasantly.  “You are only human and cannot help yourself.  It is your imagination leads you astray.  Half the time when you send for your physician there is nothing the matter with you.”

“He always prescribes,” I retorted.

“That is for your comfort, not his,” said Æsculapius, firmly.

“And sometimes they operate when it isn’t necessary,” I put in, persistently.

“True,” said Æsculapius.  “Very true.  Because if they didn’t, the patient would die of worry.”

“Humph!” said I, incredulous.  “I never knew that the operation for appendicitis was a mind cure.”

“It is—­frequently,” observed the doctor.  “There are more people, my friend, who have appendicitis on their minds than there are those who have it in their vermiforms.  Don’t forget that.”

It was a revelation, and, to tell the truth, it has been a revelation of comfort ever since.

“I fancy, doctor,” said I, after a pause, “that you are a Christian Scientist.  All troubles are fanciful and indicative of a perverse soul.”

Æsculapius flushed.

“If one of the gods had said that,” he replied, “I should have operated upon him.  As a mortal, you are privileged to say unpleasant things, just as a child may say things to his elders with impunity which merit extreme punishment.  Christian Science is all right when you are truly well—­in good physical condition.  It is a sure cure for imaginary troubles, but when you are really sick, it is not of Olympus, but of Hades.”

Æsculapius spoke with all the passion of a mortal, and I was embarrassed.  “I did not mean to say anything unpleasant, doctor,” said I.

“That’s all right, my lad,” said Æsculapius, patting me on the back.  “I knew that.  If I hadn’t known it, you’d have been on the table by this time.  And now, good-bye.  Curb your imagination.  Think about others.  Don’t worry about yourself without cause, and never send for a doctor unless you know there’s something wrong.  If I had my way you mortals would be deprived of imagination.  That is your worst disease, and if at any time you wish yours amputated, come to me and I’ll fix you out.”

“Thanks, doctor,” I replied; “but I don’t think I’ll accept your offer, because I need my imagination in my business.”

And then, realizing that I had received my congé, I prepared to depart.

“How much do I owe you, doctor?” I asked, putting my hand into the pocket of my gown, confident of finding whatever I should need.

“Nothing,” said he.  “The real physician can never be paid.  He either restores your health or he does not.  If he restores your health, he saves your life, and he is entitled to what your life is worth.  If he does not restore your health—­he has failed, and is entitled to nothing.  All you have will never pay your doctor for what he does for you.  Therefore, go in peace.”

I stood abashed in the presence of this wise man, and, as I went forth from his office, I realized the truth of what he had said.  In our own world we place a value upon the service of the man who carries us over the hard and the dark places.  Yet who can really repay him for all that he does for us when by his skill alone we are rescued from peril?

I re-entered my sedan-chair and set the blackies off again, with something potent in my mind—­how much I truly owed to the good man who has taken at times the health of my children, of my wife, of myself, in his hands and has seen us safely through to port.  I have not yet been able to estimate it, but if ever he reads these lines, he will know that I pay him in gratitude that which the world with all its wealth cannot give.

“Now for the Zoo, boys,” I cried. “Æsculapius has fixed me up.”

And we scampered on.