"CHEERO!" 
BY 
ANNIE MARION MacLEAN 
tv 
AUTHOR OF "WAGE EARNING WOMEN" AND 
"WOMEN WORKERS AND society" 
ILLUSTRATED BY 
C. R. WEED 
THE WOMANS PRESS 
600 Lexington Avenue 
NEW YORK 
1918 Copyright, 1918, by 
The National Board of 
The Young Women's Christian Associations 
of the United States of America 
600 Lexington Avenue 
New York City TO 
HADDON, JOHN AND GORDON PREFACE 
In the publication of these whimsical fragments 
from the story of an illness, my friend Jane asks leni- 
ency from the "gentle reader" on the ground that most 
of the story was told while she was still struggling with 
pain and the medical profession behind hospital bars. 
She herself finds foolishness the spice of life, and she 
hopes there are others of the same mind. 
She wishes here to extend thanks to all the friends 
and doctors and nurses who helped her in the great 
rheumatic drives. But she wishes particularly to thank 
the members of her family for their constant care and 
loving kindness. 
ANNIE MARION MacLEAN. 
VII CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Preface vn 
CHAPTER 
I. Campaigning for Cures 1 
II. On with the Fight T9 
III. Hospital Walls 29 
IV. Within a Wheel-Chair 49 
V. The Social Whirl 65 
VI. Relapses "CHEERO!" 
I 
CAMPAIGNING FOR CURES 
This is a war story that is different. That is what 
every one thinks about his, likewise her story. But 
we know ours is! The heroine here is no spectacular 
figure in the annals of Mars. She is no Hippolita 
romping through the pages of mythical lore, no venge- 
ful Boadicea riding in wrath to slay the invader, no 
sweet-faced Jael, nail in hand waiting for Sisera, no 
Maid of Saragossa, no Jessie of Lucknow, no Beebe 
Beam, not even a Tommywaac. But she is a fighter 
nevertheless, and she longs for a cessation of hostili- 
ties. This is a story of a woman who went as a private 
into the trenches to fight a disease which invaded her 
robust body without warning. She was many times 
engaged in deadly combat, but managed to emerge in 
one piece without victory. She returned from these 
excursions into No Man's Land with hope in her heart 
and no hate. It therefore seems worth while to tell 
her story for the help, or at least the entertainment 
1 "Cheero!" 
of others, who have been or may be caught in the 
clutches of disease and the medical profession. 
It should be explained here that Jane, the heroine 
of the story, is my dearest friend, my affinity, if you 
will, whom I am privileged to love and to hate till 
death us do part. I am, therefore, in a position to 
know intimately the facts of the story of her struggle 
here presented, and can vouch for their authenticity. 
Jane was always the healthiest of spinsters, and 
could ill afford the long period of warfare decreed 
by the heartless Fates; but having survived, she is 
anxious to place intrenchments along the way for those 
who follow. But to the story. 
Jane fell ill one day in winter, in the gay and festive 
Sodom. The attack was as sudden as it was discon- 
certing. To be stricken down in the midst of health 
and strength must always be a hardship. To Jane it 
was a calamity. She was a busy worker in the world 
and had many irons in the fire, too many in fact for 
one person to handle in an eight or even a sixteen- 
hour day. But irons or no irons, she was laid low, 
and this is a tale of the diagnosis and treatment, or 
mistreatment, of her disease. The effort to get well 
carried her to Gomorrah, and away to the Babylonian 
nation. 
The diagnosis per se was simple, for he-or she- 
who limps and screams may read the signs of rheuma- 
tism. The cook read Jane's for her the first day, when 
she proclaimed, "It's rheumatiz you've got, and you'll 
never get over it. The doctors can't help you." This 
2 Campaign^ng for Cures 
news was not cheerful, but the cook was, which was 
fortunate for the afflicted one. 
However, despite the cook's dictum, Jane followed 
the custom of her community, and called in a doctor 
recommended by some officious neighbor, her own 
family physician being, as she often said, a veterinary, 
since her family consisted of a valuable dog. Thus it 
was that Jane fell into the hands of Dr. A. who veri- 
fied colored Dinah's diagnosis, but not her pessimistic 
view of his profession. He inquired minutely into 
Jane's ancestral vices and personal habits. She in- 
formed him concerning the latter, but was hazy about 
the scandalous conduct of her forbears. 
Having satisfied himself as to her condition, by this 
searching investigation, he removed his spectacles, and 
bade her go and sin no more in the way of eating 
meat, drinking cofTee, tea or anything else that was not 
buttermilk. After signing his pledge of abstinence, 
she continued to grow worse, and called in Dr. B., 
whose chief claim to consideration was that he had 
been in practice forty years. He compounded medi- 
cines dark and dangerous looking, and prescribed these 
together with the use of red flannel externally applied. 
He prohibited all the meats that are commonly served, 
but permitted others, such as elk, moose and yak, in 
moderation. His medication made Jane so ill that she 
had to send for Dr. C. He, too, accepted the cook's 
diagnosis without further examination. Later he went 
into some scandalmongery among the ancients, but as 
this did not prove a prolific field, he summed up the 
3 "Cheero!" 
situation thus: "Many people have rheumatism. Avoid 
draughts, eat sparingly, and take this prescription till 
you are nearly dead. Ten dollars, please." 
Dr. D. was called in to save Jane from the effects 
of Dr. C.'s ministrations. He opined that the trouble 
belonged to the general class of diseases known to the 
unsuspecting public as rheumatism, but it should be 
differentiated as chronic rheumatism, and be treated 
by much dosing with nauseating drugs, by much rub- 
bing with unpleasant oils, by much bathing in water 
strong with bicarbonate of soda, and by little eating 
of any food designed to sustain life. He intimated 
that rheumatism became chronic when the victim had 
consulted more than one doctor. 
Dr. D.'s treatment made life more of a burden than 
ever to Jane. Her friends became alarmed, and began 
to recommend their own and their neighbor's physi- 
cians, and the various cures that were successful with 
Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention Grace, Mary and 
Ann. Packages and bottles came till they strained 
the capacity of the garbage can, and prescriptions 
and addresses till waste-baskets overflowed. In the 
meantime, Jane suffered and grew weak from rheuma- 
tism, chronic rheumatism, articular rheumatism, in- 
flammatory rheumatism and gout, according to the 
doctors who happened to be in charge. 
In spite of this burden of disease, and plethora of 
doctors, she always expected to be well in a day 
or two, and, therefore, did not enter extensively upon 
the "cures" recommended by friends. Indeed, it would 
4 Campaigning for Cures 
take at least one life-time to give them all a faithful 
trial. 
It is to this period that she dates her moral down- 
fall, for she says it was then she began to perjure 
herself when placed on the witness stand by her kind 
friends, and made to testify as to the virtues of this 
or that preparation. She was no longer free; she was 
pursued relentlessly by those who would cure her. 
It was about this time that she consulted Dr. E. of 
wide reputation for gruffness, and some for skill in 
his profession. He took issue, in words at least, 
with Dinah, and pronounced the disease gout, pre- 
scribed a strict non-meat diet, much dosage, two 
Turkish baths a week, and told the patient to return 
in one month. Had she persisted in the treatment, it 
is clear that she could not have returned in one month, 
if at all. Jane was becoming helpless, and as her 
sprightly interest in getting cured was waning, she 
took stock of herself thus: 
Sick five weeks, consulted five doctors, insulted 
twenty friends, lost ten pounds in weight and several 
hundred dollars in cash, pain greatly increased, inflam- 
mation not allayed, nights sleepless, appetite practically 
gone, ancestor worship an impossibility (all ancestors 
were under suspicion in the medical world, it seemed) ; 
outlook on the whole not satisfactory. 
This situation brought Jane abruptly to the end of 
the first period in her disease, that in which any doc- 
tor merely because he (or she) happened to be a doctor 
was consulted, and his advice followed until she 
5 "Cheero!" 
became worse. Then she passed on to another of the 
same type, only to become still worse, just as Dinah 
thought. The unintelligent period she called it, that is, 
when she herself was not intelligent on the subject 
(it was obvious the doctors were not), and not seri- 
ously agitated over her own condition. It marks the 
time when she drank and drank and drank, not pleas- 
ant and stimulating drinks, oh! no, but alkaline waters 
that cured Jack, and buttermilk that restored Jill; 
when she swallowed nameless medicines the doctors 
ordered; when she was rubbed and slapped and bathed 
ad nauseam, and when the pains increased ad infini- 
tum. She says that is a closed book in her rheumatic 
experiences, and is put away on memory's shelf 
marked Vol. i, Aa to Ee, like any other volume in an 
encyclopedia. 
Jane now became obsessed with the idea that intelli- 
gent knowledge on her part was essential to a well- 
regulated cure, and she began haunting libraries by 
telephone, or by proxy, as the disease permitted, in 
quest of the desired information. She read much 
and learned little. According to some so-called author- 
ities, rheumatism is of fifty-seven varities, most of 
which are best treated by exercise of the Christian 
virtues, and abstinence from meats, and, if cared for 
in this way, are guaranteed not to outlast the indi- 
vidual afflicted. Others again recognize another vari- 
ety which is ordinarily cured by six weeks, six months, 
or six years in bed, the Fates alone know which. 
Then there were those who divided the disease 
6 Campaigning for Cures 
into chronic and not-chronic, but like the "T. M." and 
"T. M." labels on the old woman's pies, it was hard to 
tell " 'tis mince" from " 'tain't mince." She found 
also discussions of curable and incurable kinds, but 
these seemed to merge somewhere on the road to 
incurability. Stray articles in leading medical journals 
led to the belief that here and there some doctors 
were seeking causes and related cures, but on the 
whole Jane gathered that while rheumatism had pes- 
tered man since before the time of Christ, crippling 
alike naked savages in South Sea isles, fur-clad Eski- 
mos near frozen seas, and denizens of temperate zones, 
nothing worth while was known about it, that is, 
nothing more than Dinah knew. 
Jane was now a sadder and a wiser woman, and 
started forth anew to seek more enlightened medical 
aid. The result of this was her introduction to springs 
and baths and change of climate as saving possibilities. 
As Doctors F. and G. were of one opinion in regard 
to the efficacy of these, the late winter found Jane 
journeying to the outposts of Babylon in search of 
healing waters. It was a well-beaten path, for thou- 
sands had been there before her, and thousands are 
still following with hope in their hearts and money 
in their purses. They are liable to lose both commod- 
ities if they remain long. 
The Springs doctor was a new type to Jane and 
afforded her much amusement. She encountered Dr. 
H. and Dr. I. They were alike in their method of 
entering in their books the name, age, address, marital 
7 "Cheero!" 
state, previous condition of servitude, and much gos- 
sip of a personal nature. This must have been taken 
for its mental effect on the patient, or doctor, or both, 
for it was not referred to again, and could not in any 
way influence the prescription, which was the same 
in all cases regardless of age, sex, marital woes, or 
non-marital bliss. The Springs doctor is there, for a 
consideration, to stimulate an interest in water exter- 
nally and internally applied-for a consideration-• 
regardless of sectarian bias. Methodists and Baptists 
alike were immersed in overflowing tubs. 
It was in this Babylonian camp that Jane first heard 
the "You will be worse before you are better" theory, 
promulgated as though it were a biblical doctrine by 
all satraps, from doctors to bath attendants and bell 
boys. Part of it is true, and as sure as death and 
taxes, "you will be worse" all right. If you are cour- 
ageous enough to go home before it is eternally too 
late, you may be better in time. 
At the Springs, there was one god besides Water 
and his name was Diet. The physicians gave dietaries 
plain, and dietaries fancy, according to their taste, 
but it was all very complicated, inasmuch as the hotel 
menus were composed of the proscribed articles. The 
diet list of Dr. I. was a neat little booklet with gilt 
edges, the gilding for which was doubtless obtained 
from the gold bricks lying around. It was all so 
exciting that Jane returned to Sodom and again 
sought relief within its walls. She trusted her for- 
tunes to Dr. J. this time, and in justice to him, it must 
8 Campaigning for Cures 
be said that he never betrayed the trust. He knew 
more than all the rest, which of course is not saying 
a great deal; but he was honest, and lifted the veil 
of mystery from his drugs, calling them by name 
openly; and he expressed his distrust in diets as a 
curative measure, recommending instead good food 
and plenty of it, and a few weeks of complete rest in a 
hospital. 
Now any one who has had any hospital experience 
knows that the rest to be obtained is a negligible 
quantity, but the unsuspecting Jane went, and for five 
weeks endured noises and smells such as she had 
never met before, and all in the hope of getting rid 
of pain. There, besides Dr. J., she was cared for by 
Dr. K. and Dr. L., and nurses who persisted in waking 
her up at night to see if she was asleep. She got no 
better. 
Her next move was a thousand miles across the 
plains to test the virtues of hot mud. Here she was 
interviewed by Dr. M. and his assistant Dr. N., both 
of whom assured her that three weeks' treatment 
would restore her health, and here she heard again 
the "You will be worse, before you are better" theory. 
It should be "You will be worse, but you won't be 
better." Jane had four weeks of baths every day 
including Sundays, and was so reduced that she had 
to remain several weeks more to gain sufficient 
strength to leave. 
Now baths are all right in their place and Jane 
would be the last to dispute their therapeutic value. 
9 "Cheero!" 
She is eager to have laws passed compelling hoboes 
and pacifists for example, to be summarily bathed, 
or even ducked at high water, but at the same time she 
would have laws enacted to protect the rheumatic from 
a like fate. 
The doctor whose name was not mud, but should 
have been, told her that of course the baths would 
not help her unless she had absolute faith in them, 
<o which she retorted that if faith were the curative 
element, why might she not sit under a tree and 
imagine she was being cured. Ten barrels of mud 
externally, and two gallons of water internally applied 
daily left small space for the exercise of faith. Be- 
cause she would not remain longer, her disease was 
now diagnosed as arthritis deformans, and pronounced 
incurable, just as Dinah had said, but not so cheer- 
fully. Dr. M. offered this diagnosis unsolicited late at 
night, and he pictured graphically the horrors of a 
permanently crippled condition. Jane faced his an- 
nouncement with outward calm, whereupon he said: 
"By Jove! but you have good nerve!" to which she 
replied: "It's nothing to yours." 
A month without medical treatment followed this 
experience. In other words she "took the cure for the 
cure" and got better and then worse and better again, 
as any innocent bystander could have told her she 
would. The autumn found Jane in Sodom again, pursu- 
ing a giddy round of treatments. She was boiled and 
broiled, baked, roasted and stung, not to mention 
soaked. Dr. O., who supervised these so-called thera- 
10 Campaigning for Cures 
peutic processes, named her disease gouty rheumatism, 
and put the blame on food and ancestors. The ances- 
tors being dead and unable to defend themselves, noth- 
ing could be done about them, but he proposed to 
punish Jane for the liberties he assumed she had taken 
with food by putting her on a diet which was so 
remarkable that she quoted it in full. 
Breakfast-An apple. 
Dinner-Spinach, creamed onions, milk. 
Supper-Water. 
Dr. O. gave it as his judgment that this treatment 
would soon end not only rheumatism, but Jane as 
well; therefore she did not undertake it, feeling that 
life with rheumatism was better perhaps than no life 
at all without it. 
This marks the close of the second period of 
seeking cures. Jane says it did not differ from the 
first particularly, except that she was subjected to 
greater physical indignities, and spent a great deal of 
time and more money. She was still cheerful, but 
losing weight rapidly, a circumstance in and of itself 
to be desired, inasmuch as it gave her the fashionable 
figure. This, however was not a matter of great 
moment, since the poor thing was obliged to stay in 
bed most of the time. 
Dr. P. now took charge of the case, assured the 
patient that he could cure her shortly, and then pro- 
ceeded to diagnose the case. When he found a brother 
medicus had called it gouty rheumatism, he laughed 
in scorn, and said any one with half an eye could 
11 "Cheero!" 
see that it was rheumatic gout. His method of treat- 
ment, he said, was different from that of all other 
doctors; he always cured, whereas they always failed. 
He discoursed at length upon his skill, and read testi- 
monials by the half-dozen just as the regular quacks 
do. Jane was quite impressed, and finally asked, 
"What is the treatment?" to which he at once re- 
sponded: "Ten dollars a call, and I must see you a 
thousand times," or words to that effect. Poor Jane 
had to be revived, for she is rather guileless in the 
matter of business and always trusts to the future for 
revelations as to cost. This excursion on the sea of 
pure (or impure) medical science reduced her bank 
account by two hundred dollars. For some days she 
was too ill to offer effective protest. 
After this she found and clung to Dr. Q. with 
tenacity. He looked wise, and besides, the dog liked 
him, while he distrusted Dr. P. This counted with 
Jane for she has long maintained that her setter's 
judgment of men is unfailing, and now she is willing 
to add that he can be trusted better than the neigh- 
bors to select a physician. Dr. Q. took the patient 
in hand, pronounced her disease arthritis and in short 
order haled her to the hospital. He did not impeach 
her ancestors or cast aspersions on her own lack of 
sobriety. He did not inquire into the exact amount 
of coffee or meat she had been in the habit of con- 
suming each day. He went scavenging for germs. 
Jane felt better already. 
Ever since she started on her wild orgy of illness, 
12 Campaigning for Cures 
she had been made to feel that her family was under 
the ban, and she herself a pariah of some sort whom 
God Almighty was chastising. Poor Jane, whose 
ancestors were so good they were uninteresting, and 
who never knew the difference between a cocktail and 
a guinea hen, had always led an upright life without 
trying! But the doctors had insisted that there was 
an hereditary taint, and on that account rheumatism 
ran in families. She said no one but a medical brother 
could make such a mistake as that, for we all know 
that rheumatism can not run anywhere; it is mostly 
confined to wheel-chairs. But here was cheer. Instead 
of harboring hereditary viciousness, her body had been 
burglarized by bugs, when her guns were not loaded. 
They had moved in, in fact, and were occupying the 
citadel, and Dr. Q. set out to rout them. As assist- 
ants in the hospital, he had Drs. R. and S. 
The weeks rolled into months and still the fight 
went on. Jane grew worse and better and worse again, 
and then other illustrious members of the brotherhood 
of physicians were called in consultation. Dr. T. came 
first with much blare of trumpets, and, after subject- 
ing the patient to many indignities, pronounced hers 
an aggravated case of infectious arthritis. It now 
became clear that the more expensive doctors eschewed 
the term rheumatism, and sought to bewilder the suf- 
ferer, not to mention the sufferer's friends, with a 
more scientific phraseology, but it did not seem to 
lessen the pain. Jane had now to her credit fifty- 
13 "Cheero!" 
seven, or was it fifty-eight, varieties of rheumatism, 
arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, arthritis deformans, and 
infectious arthritis. But whether the tune was arthri- 
tis plain or arthritis fancy, it was a dirge to Jane. 
After giving his diagnosis, Dr. T. opined that the 
victim would get well, thus differing from Dinah, but 
he did not reveal how or when or where. Jane valued 
his opinion highly, but as it did not make her better, 
the conscientious Dr. Q. called in another notable, Dr. 
U., for consultation. His fame was great as was 
evidenced by a detached look and a heavy watch chain. 
Jane was duly impressed, but not awed. While en- 
gaged in sinking his fists into various parts of her 
anatomy, he addressed her as Mrs. Blank, Mrs. Blink 
and Mrs. Blunk in turn. Now Jane could endure 
the blankety-blank succession of cognomens, but the 
Mrs. never, for, as she often asserts she has fought 
and bled to maintain her spinsterhood, a fact attested 
by the graves of importunate swains kept green in 
her imagination. Peace without victory was finally 
restored in the sick chamber. But Jane had her fight- 
ing gloves on, and when he said, with a return to 
his detached look and an air of finality, "You have 
infectious arthritis, I could tell you all about this. 
I wrote an article on it once," she said, "Go ahead. 
I am more intelligent than I look." He gasped "God 
forbid!" and departed muttering, "What manner of 
woman is this!" 
Jane had her days enlivened by these specialists of 
14 Campaigning for Cures 
great reputation, but she decided it was like aviation, 
a rich man's sport, and not to be indulged in by the 
impecunious. 
The weeks of misery dragged on, and Jane had 
about concluded that the best she could hope for was 
to reduce rheumatism as the Englishman in Africa 
reduced his malaria, from the level of a disease to 
that of a beastly nuisance. She was getting very tired 
and quite helpless now, despite the consultations and 
vigorous treatment. The hunt for germs had gone 
on with all the zest and much of the uncertainty of 
a hunt for the "man higher up" in a Federal investi- 
gation. She was inoculated with germs living and 
germs dead, germs respectable and germs the reverse, 
but always counted by the million or billion, until she 
felt like an oil magnate-that is, she did until she 
remembered her bank account. One great advantage 
of this treatment was that it furnished a lively interest, 
and that, even some doctors know, is of the greatest 
value to a sick person. Jane commenced betting on 
the outcome. It was disease versus the cure, with 
odds always in favor of the cure. She was a hopeful 
creature in those days. Her friends often wondered 
that she did not become depressed; but she got fun 
out of what she called her researches into the medical 
profession. She was a student by nature and by train- 
ing, and therefore studied doctors while they studied 
her, and often to their confusion. While they tried 
suggestion on her, she tried it on them. If doctors can 
"suggest" to patients that they get well, why should 
15 "Cheero!" 
patients not "suggest" to doctors that they cure them? 
But as this did not seem to work either way, Jane 
finally left the hospital, down, but not quite out, and 
fighting still. Dinah's "You'll never get over it" kept 
ringing in her ears. 
16 II 
ON WITH THE FIGHT 
After the diverse experiences through which she 
had passed, Jane felt that she had run the whole 
gamut of cures, and her next move should be to some 
quiet retreat where she could think it all over. This 
seemed a commonplace enough undertaking, but the 
putting it into practice carried with it numerous com- 
plications, all full of zest for Jane. She finally selected 
a sanitarium less than a day's march from Sodom, and 
one of her relatives, imported for the occasion, under- 
took to convey the party thither. The party consisted 
of the dog, a trained nurse-the dog was trained, too 
-and the invalid. The frenzied relative asserted then, 
and maintains to this day, that the invalid gave her 
the least anxiety. The nurse did not like the seclusion 
of the drawing room, with the mercury at ninety, while 
the dog did not like the exclusion of the baggage car, 
so they both took speaking parts; and, as was said 
before, they were trained. 
Jane now entered upon another stage of her rheu- 
matic career-that in which she had to be carried from 
place to place. 
She made her exit from Sodom in the arms of 
19 "Cheero!" 
two robust sons of Ham, and she never looked back, 
thus avoiding a saline ending. The sanitarium expe- 
rience would have been depressing to any one but 
Jane. She saw humor in it all, even in the pompous 
Dr. V., who had a naive notion that avoirdupois would 
pass for mentality. He glibly dubbed Jane's prize 
affliction rheumatism. In vain she argued with him, 
taking the position that after all she had passed 
through she was entitled to a less plebeian diagnosis. 
But he was adamant, and assured her that static elec- 
tricity would render her knees so nimble that she 
would be running all over town in a few weeks. Said 
he in essence: "Fie! on the Wise Men in the East, 
they know not what they say, much less what they 
do." Jane tried his static electricity and found it 
about as effective as a poultice of static sociology. But 
then what could be expected of the man who had 
diagnosed the Irish Setter as an English Bull I 
Jane grew sicker every week, and her temperature 
kept climbing. With each fresh attack, she got a new 
diagnosis, until she accumulated a collection of about 
six different diseases in addition to the original one, 
and they were caused by anything that happened to 
occur to the diagnostician at the moment, and for 
each and all of them the same treatment was pre- 
scribed. Still, she felt that, owing to a kind and over- 
ruling Providence, she did not get enough to hurt her, 
because something always got out of gear. The elec- 
tric machine was on a rampage one day, and the 
doctor the next. The latter cataclysmic performance 
20 On with the Fight 
was never explained; the former was always ascribed 
to the weather. 
Jane found it passing strange that the elements 
should be held responsible for so many untoward 
events. Meteorological phenomena as a cause, or at 
least a promoter of rheumatism had been suggested to 
her from the beginning. It was part of Dinah's belief, 
accepted as an illuminating explanation by sympathiz- 
ing friends, and surreptitiously advanced by most doc- 
tors. What could be simpler ? Rheumatism is; rain 
is; therefore damp weather causes rheumatism! More- 
over, it is a tolerably safe assumption since it is always 
raining, has rained, or is going to rain in Jane's world. 
Treatment was now banished from Jane's program, 
and she gave herself up to plans for a further cam- 
paign. She was not yet ready to accept the edict of 
permanent disability. It is true she had already heard 
of nine hundred and ninety-nine "cases" just like hers 
that were either mouldering in their graves, lying help- 
less in beds, or sitting helpless in wheel-chairs, but 
this did not stimulate resignation to a like fate on 
her part. "Surely," said Jane, "some detective agency 
or bureau of research exists which can find the hiding 
place of the wise man who can cure my disease, for 
such a one lives somewhere." 
She finally learned, with the aid a few amateur 
sleuths, that in Gomorrah there lived a doctor, whose 
skill was heralded even in Macedonia, who was giving 
the lie to Dinah's statement. This was exhilarating 
news, and preparations were at once made for the 
21 "Cheero!" 
journey. Now Jane had vowed when she entered 
the retreat that she would not leave till she could walk 
away, but what are vows between a woman and her 
pet affliction? So she went off gaily, hanging on the 
neck of an Irishman, but stoutly maintaining that her 
next move would be made on her own feet or there 
would be no next one. She said afterwards that 
though she had taken that position, no doubt the future 
would witness her migration from Gomorrah with 
arms tightly clasped about a Swede! Jane is nothing 
if not adaptable. 
The journey was eventful, but without fatalities, 
and at its end, Jane found herself again within hos- 
pital walls, and in the care of the renowned Dr. W., 
his internes, Drs. I, 2, 3 and 4; his assistants, Drs. 
X. and Y.; his understudy, Dr. W.; his co-operating 
specialist, Dr. Z., with his internes, Drs. 5, 6, and 7, 
and Dr. &., with his internes, Drs. 8 and 9. These ap- 
peared in the arena gradually; they were not all lined 
up to meet her. If they had been, undoubtedly she 
would at once have sought the shelter of the strong- 
limbed Swede her imagination had pictured the day 
before. 
Here they took the history of her case, not the his- 
tory of her life, and she was not made to blench before 
that awful question, "Of what did your mother's great- 
grandfather die?" and its twin sister, "What diseases 
were prevalent in your father's family before the 
deluge?" or "What did you eat for Thanksgiving din- 
ner the first twenty-one years of your life, and what 
22 On with the Fight 
did you drink on the Ides of March, the ten succeed- 
ing years?" Jane breathed easier now. This was 
true democracy, the kind for which the medical world 
must be made safe. One's body stood, or fell, on its 
own merits, and not on the habits of its ancestors. 
Another point scored for environment; another blow 
struck at heredity. Dr. W. and his associates differed 
from their predecessors in that they embarked upon 
a search for cause before they commenced to treat 
the disease, which Dr. W. diagnosed as arthritis with 
or without adjectival characterization. These were 
days of real sport for Jane. She was now a rheuma- 
tism fan, she said. She had been batted out as a 
player, but no one could stop her from pursuing the 
game (or the game from pursuing her). Jane had 
learned much about the foibles of the medical profes- 
sion during her laboratory course in experimental 
rheumatism, henceforth to be known as arthritis, and, 
therefore, was prepared to meet the requirements in 
the hospital in Gomorrah. She had learned that a 
good patient is an optimist; and that an optimist is 
one who has faith in his doctor. That is clear 
enough, though, for one must needs be an optimist 
to have faith in his doctor! She also learned that 
brains are considered an undesirable asset in a 
patient, and, in fact, the doctors usually go on the 
assumption that patients have none. At any rate, 
when sickness comes one's mind should be removed, 
like one's back hair, and put carefully away in case 
of future need. It is patent to all that no patient 
23 "Cheero!" 
should essay even a thinking part in the tragedy (or 
is it comedy) being played. 
Jane knew all this, but nevertheless she became ac- 
tively interested in the fight now well under way. Her 
body was prone, but her mind was alert, not tucked 
away in a bureau drawer. They bandied new words 
about, they cut, they scraped, they drew blood and 
tears in quest of the "focus of infection"; they trained 
field glasses and microscopes on jungle beasts and 
infinitesimal organisms; they raced and chased after 
the Cocci knaves, said to be related to the Assyrian 
who came down like a wolf on the fold. "I'll get that 
staphylococcus," said one; "You catch the pneumo- 
coccus," said another; while a third called out, "I've 
caught the streptococcus, and it is viridans." "Hur- 
rah! Hurrah!" they yelled in glee, "We'll grow a 
culture, and make a vaccine now." The excitement 
was intense. Poor Jane grew delirious, with disease, 
not with joy, while the treatment went on. She was 
punctured with needles big and needles small, until 
the sight of a hypodermic syringe made her shudder. 
Vaccine and serum vied with each other to pay her 
homage. 
Meanwhile she grew worse and worse and worse 
and worse, but her interest in the game never flagged. 
It was win the war or die with her. They all talked 
freely about her leucocytes, and watched eagerly for 
news of her opsonic index. And through it all Dr. W. 
seemed to know what he was doing, and did it sys- 
tematically. But Jane did grow worse for weeks, and 
24 On with the Fight 
weeks, and weeks, and then she got better, for many 
weeks that followed just as they expect one to do 
at the Springs. It suddenly dawned upon her that 
she was no longer better; her disease was cured. The 
floodgates of joy were open. The news went out to 
all. 
They had stabbed her, and speared her, and cheered 
her, until she was immune. Then they stretched her, 
and rounded her, and flattened her, and broke her 
bones, but not her spirit, and imprisoned her in plas- 
ter casts. They gave her opiates and permission to 
be profane, but never once did they hint that "the 
Almighty had it in for her" as others had done. It 
is so much simpler to charge things up to Jehovah 
than to seek an immediate cause. But that was not 
the way of the bold brigands who slew her germs. 
They used their brains to better purpose. 
These were trying times for Jane. Her disease 
was routed, but she herself had been nearly put to 
flight; or to change the figure, her old tenant, arthritis, 
had moved out, but her new self had not yet moved 
in. Getting sick, she maintains, is easy, but getting 
well is no coward's task. It would be simpler to crawl 
away to die like a heathen than to work like a steve- 
dore to get well. Yet she says, after all, there is no 
question but that it is better "to be" than "not to be." 
Many things made the struggle hard for Jane. We 
must admit it would have rent a weaker heart to stay 
in bed when the suffragists were parading from Dan 
to Beersheba. She was such a fine parader before she 
25 "Cheero!" 
suffered from diagnosis! But even sorrow like this 
could not keep a militant soul down. The next we 
knew, Scutari fell, and Jane got up and walked. It is 
not definitely known that there was any connection be- 
tween the two. But she remembers hearing that rain 
and rheumatic pains follow one another, hence in the 
other case also, post hoc, ergo propter hoc. However 
this may be, Jane's first halting step, taken with the 
help of two strong crutches and a brawny male, was 
as wildly exciting to her as an unexpurgated tango to 
the jaded Sodomite. She dreamed of Marathons. 
Getting well proved quite as interesting as getting 
her disease cured, and bade fair to take a much longer 
time. Jane, even in her most painful moments, had 
always referred to her disease as something apart 
from herself, as though it were a lodger, in fact, and 
not a member of the family. And a most undesirable 
lodger it was, for it left the house in a deplorable con- 
dition; but the injuries were not irreparable. Dr. W. 
and company were unusually fine decorators and re- 
pairers. A little upholstering here; a little bloom of 
health there; a little pulling here, and a little patting 
there, made a new woman of Jane. 
She was contented now. She got her disease diag- 
nosed and cured, and she herself, she hoped, would be 
as well as ever in a few years. We supposed of 
course that she would now devote her time to an 
advocacy of the extermination of the medical profes- 
sion, on the ground that it was a public-also a pri- 
vate-nuisance. This had been her pet reform. As 
26 On with the Fight 
a less radical, and perhaps more attainable measure, 
she had openly urged the amendment of the game 
laws to provide an open season for doctors, when 
patients could seek redress without becoming liable 
on a charge of manslaughter. She had hoped to get 
this inserted in the platform of the Aggressive party, 
but in the days of platform construction, she was 
too weak to push it in. 
"What is Jane doing now?" you ask. Oh, she is 
writing letters to all the rheumatics she ever heard of, 
urging them to try her doctor. Jane is so inconsistent. 
It must be the weather! 
27 in 
WITHIN HOSPITAL WALLS 
Hospitals are interesting places to Jane because 
they are filled with human beings and, paradoxical 
as it may appear, she says even stupid human beings 
are interesting. There are the permanents and the 
transients, the former, especially if they are conva- 
lescing, have a proprietary interest in everything, 
while they regard the people who pass in and out 
as part and parcel of the family. Many members of 
the ailing fraternity are afraid of hospitals, and shun 
them as they would a plague, but when Jane had a 
hospital sentence thrust upon her, she accepted it gaily, 
and now she is willing to discourse upon her early 
experiences which covered more than a year. 
People say that hospitals, like sanitariums, are of 
two kinds, the one you are in, and the other kind. 
The latter are always the best. But since one cannot 
comfortably change hospitals as he can hotels, he has 
to remain where Fate puts him, for a time at least. 
Jane's experience took her to two of the best in Sodom 
and Gomorrah. What would have become of her if 
she had been incarcerated in a miserable place in 
Nineveh, she hates to imagine. With hospitals as with 
doctors, the best are none too good. 
29 "Cheero!" 
Hospital number one is big and old and rich, with 
tradition skulking in the corners. The fact that it is 
rich, however, does not cause it to give rebates to pri- 
vate patients, but rather to mulct them of their hard- 
earned or hard-stolen or hard-inherited wealth. From 
five to ten or more dollars a day is the price of board 
and lodging, except for the hundreds who are herded 
together in the big public part, and pay nothing at all 
or only a small sum. 
Jane found herself on the eighth floor far above 
the din of city streets marked "Quiet Zone." It was 
here that she was treated or mistreated or ill-treated, 
for four months. It was here she was visited and 
revisited by scores and scores of friends and acquaint- 
ances. Prior to this, Jane's personal experience with 
hospitals was limited to the dog hospital whither she 
went on occasions to have her setter washed. That 
seemed an entertaining enough place, for, as soon as 
they entered, the dog pounced upon a cat, and then 
for a time the atmosphere looked like a cubist paint- 
ing. But finally she rescued her dog and somebody 
else rescued the cat, and things were as they were 
before. 
This, however, was poor preparation for a sojourn 
in a human or even an inhuman hospital. Nothing 
so exciting as a cat and dog encounter ever took place 
there. The only encounter Jane met was between the 
cabbie and door man who nearly came to blows about 
the trunk. However, this peril was averted by a 
judicious distribution of silver coins, and the sick one 
30 Within Hospital Walls 
entered, and was made to give up several of the care- 
fully guarded secrets of her own life and of her ances- 
tors, not to mention the name of her nearest male 
relative. She filled the dog's name in the last-men- 
tioned blank, hoping that the secretary would seek 
an interview! 
Hospital number two was big and fairly young, and 
rich, and there were no traditions skulking in the 
corners-only nurses and their beaux. The rates 
charged were high enough to make a hotel-keeper 
rich, and a patron poor. As Jane looks back now, 
she says it must be the noisiest spot on earth. It 
seemed as if street cars and elevated trains circled 
round and round the buildings, while steam radiators 
and elevators and employes added to the confusion 
within. When there was nothing else to disturb the 
patient, and she was thinking of a possible sleep, win- 
dow washers with their ladders and belts and buckets 
arrived to contribute their quota to the day's din. But 
after all a hospital is not a grave, so why maintain 
a death-like calin just to satisfy a lot of unreasonable 
sick people? The first thing that Jane learned was 
that the hush in hospital halls is pure and simple 
myth. The attending physicians are the noisiest of 
all, then come the visitors-that is, other patients' 
visitors-and between times, the nurses can always be 
relied on to keep up the din. On the whole, though, 
a hospital is not so noisy as a railway station or a 
foundry. 
Hospital administration always entertained Jane. 
31 "Cheero!" 
She would lie in bed and listen to the patter of the 
nurses' feet through the corridor, and wonder why 
a little scientific management could not be used to 
save the wear and tear on all concerned. But it seems 
to be a part of the training that these young women 
should rush madly along in the discharge of their du- 
ties, waiting on patients in breathless haste, as if they 
were telegraph boys delivering messages. In imagina- 
tion they see the eagle eye of some one to be feared, 
watching them, as they pursue their frantic course 
of giving scant attention to patients. But after all, 
they are very human despite their seeming inhumanity. 
Jane, being quite ill and disabled, needed special 
nurses all the time, and had a good many owing to 
her migrations and long sojourns in hospitals and 
other places. They were capable young women with 
the usual whims and virtues of womankind. They 
were a good-natured lot, too, and that pleased Jane 
since she can forgive almost anything but ill-temper. 
Laughter and fun she says are the best antidotes for 
disease that she knows; and with these, even a hos- 
pital sentence can be endured with equanimity. A 
buoyant nurse is worth her weight in gold, but a 
gloomy one is a bitter dose. 
At one time, Jane had much entertainment figuring 
out an elaborate plan for substituting automatic electri- 
cal devices for nurses, in order to relieve those young 
creatures for more interesting work than taking care of 
sick people day and night. It could be arranged, she 
thought, to push a button once and have a glass of 
32 Within Hospital Walls 
water patrol the bed; twice, and a dose of aspirin 
come up; thrice, and an extra blanket spread its soft 
surface over her; four times, and a soporific appear; 
five times, and a cup of soup jauntily spill itself over 
the patient; six times, and a record intone: "Any- 
thing I can do for you ? Lie still and go to sleep now," 
and so on to the end of the chapter. 
There are possibilities here, we must admit, but 
Jane never promoted the scheme, for she knew the 
substitution would be dreary for internes. Imagine 
them having to give whispered instructions to a steam 
derrick! A young blonde is so much more receptive. 
But one cannot blame Jane for much speculation 
about such matters when she served a whole year's 
sentence behind hospital bars. One has to think about 
something, and the less thought about doctors the 
better. Neither can one say, "eni, meni, mini, mo" 
all day. 
Jane liked all her nurses, but she wanted to be well 
enough to take care of herself. Nurses as well as 
patients have their imperfections, and when all con- 
cerned realize this, life together is one grand sweet 
song. 
It is not the ideal existence, however, to be help- 
less and cared for by a succession of young women. 
To lie in bed and be fed is bad enough, but to have 
spoons of soup poised in the air, while the nurse is 
lost in thought, or deftly overturned on one's bosom 
while the feeder has her eyes on the West Front, 
takes the meal out of the ranks of light comedy, and 
33 "Cheero!" 
makes it a tragic performance. To have one's face 
washed by hands that move up when they should 
move down, and vice versa, and one's painful digits 
handled as if they belonged to a champion wrestler, is 
hard to bear with equanimity. It seems that some 
nurses give a bath as if the victim were a wooden 
Indian, instead of a mass of quivering nerves, sore 
muscles, and aching bones. Yet they try to be con- 
siderate. Jane has come to the conclusion that it 
never was intended that one human being should be 
cared for by another in such fashion. People should 
stay well or die. 
Jane had her trials in the hospital because her afflic- 
tion is one that everybody knows something about, and 
about which nobody knows anything, therefore, every 
one took an indulgent interest in her progress or retro- 
gression. Her disease, as she has told in preceding 
pages, was rheumatism, not of the plain, ordinary gar- 
den variety as afterward became evident, but a rare 
exotic known as arthritis. The last named term is 
passed unheeded by the average citizen, and treated 
with silent contempt by others. Its use is merely a 
medical ruse to conceal incapacity, they think. 
After Jane was settled down to hospital routine, she 
endeavored to get what pleasure she could out of her 
disease and her surroundings. It might seem difficult 
to some to get much enjoyment out of the former, 
since pain kept her at the screaming point most of 
the time, but her risibilities were occasionally roused 
by her own condition, and her surroundings always 
34 Within Hospital Walls 
proved interesting. She often chafed under a cruel 
Fate that consigned her to rheumatism instead of to 
some fashionable malady. Others reveled in goiter 
and gall stones, appendicitis and peritonitis and even 
neuritis, not to mention endocarditis. But rheuma- 
tism ! Every nurse in the hospital had a grandfather 
or at least an aunt who had it. Poor Jane was hum- 
bled in the dust for she well knew that a recital of her 
plebeian ills would not be tolerated in polite or even 
impolite society. The hospital officials conveyed this 
impression, indirectly of course, but nevertheless un- 
mistakably. What satisfaction, indeed, is there in 
spending the precious moments of one's life in a 
hospital without being able to boast about it after- 
ward? 
But after all, the Fates were kind to Jane in that 
they permitted her, during her hospital sojourn, to 
have three operations. Had she remained longer, 
doubtless she would have had more to her credit, for 
whenever there was a slack time among the carvers, 
they turned their eyes greedily on her. There is some- 
thing so distinctive about an operation that it should 
be enjoyed by every one who can raise the money. 
Of course the more organs one can have removed, 
the more lasting its glory. But even if one cannot 
achieve a laparotomy, a mere tonsillectomy gives a 
feeling of superiority that, like virtue, is its own re- 
ward. But when Jane found that it is only in complete 
anaesthetization that one can hope to become a partici- 
pant in organ recitals, she entered into that state with a 
35 "CheeroT 
feeling of exaltation, knowing full well that even her 
plebeian rheumatism had done her that good turn. 
X-ray pictures had been taken and revealed the fact 
that she could never walk again, even though her 
arthritis was cured, unless she submitted to an opera- 
tion on her bent and twisted knees. Thus did her 
opportunity come to her. One bright morning-it 
was a gala though breakfastless day for Jane-a squad 
of internes trundled her off on a cart to a room where 
sat the Lord High Executioner waiting for his prey. 
Just before she reached Nirvana, a sepulchral tone 
demanded, "Have you any loose teeth?" "Not yet," 
said Jane, and then passed into Lethe. 
When she came to, she was in her room encased 
in about ten pounds of plaster casts, and vigorously 
setting her dog on the doctors. Thus did she emerge 
from unconsciousness while a woman across the hall 
came back to life calling for her husband whom she 
insisted "was a good man, next to God," while two 
doors down, a man half full of ether was confiding 
to the world that he liked his divorced wife better 
than the one of his bosom. 
And who says hospitals are dull? 
There is no sport known to man-not to mention 
woman-as exciting as getting a disease cured. The 
chances for recovery are slim even though one's purse 
is fat. It is always an uneven contest with the patient 
on one side, the hospital and doctors on the other. 
Still if the patient has good nerve, he may win. 
In addition to her operations, Jane had the some- 
36 Within Hospital Walls 
what unusual experience of going down to the Pearly 
Gates, but not quite through them. It was a case 
of the cure being worse than the disease. Those were 
the days when one's faith was pinned to serums and 
vaccines, and Jane's great adventure came with the 
sixth injection of a serum that was to make her well. 
The doctor came to her room in the hospital, and 
gave it to her, as usual, hypodermically in the back. 
This time he did not break a needle, but perhaps he 
went into a blood vessel. She said that in a minute 
or two, as the pain after the stab was passing, the 
room became vague, blurred, black. An intense itching 
spread over the body, herald of a scarlet urticaria. 
Queer, gasping breaths escaped her lips. All of this 
transpired in the twinkling of an eye. The doctor's 
quick mind grasped the situation and he quietly sum- 
moned aid. The "reaction" at its worst was soon 
upon Jane. Nurses came nervously running through 
the corridor, internes at hand dropped in, as though 
casually, while hurry calls were sent for older and 
wiser men. 
The symptoms of anaphylaxis multiplied, and she 
lay panting on the bed. Windows and doors were 
thrown open and fans were pressed into service. 
She was pulled up and then down again as respiration 
became more difficult. She said she felt the tingle 
of hypodermic antidotes first in one arm, and then 
in the other. Cups were pressed to her lips. Then 
all was a blur again, and she heard only hurrying feet 
37 "Cheero!" 
as though in the far distance, in a world from which 
she was passing. Then all was silence. . . . 
Again through eyes red and bleary, peering through 
a swollen countenance, she said she dimly discerned 
five doctors and three nurses. But the world was 
not a real place. It was plain she was dying. The 
doctors thought so, but they did not cease their efforts. 
One said, "She is unconscious," and for a brief mo- 
ment it was true. But the hurrying heels of a mes- 
senger, bearing a pulmotor, broke in upon oblivion, 
and she meekly asked, "What is that?" First one and 
then another replied, "Nothing for you." It was for 
her, but it mattered not then. Jane was wandering in 
the borderland, unable to formulate a request. Yes, 
she was dying. . . . But she said she had no regrets, 
no fears. She was glad the young doctors had a 
chance to gain valuable experience. She was glad the 
little nurse at the foot of the bed, looking out of tear- 
dimmed eyes, was seeing an "interesting case." She 
wondered if the lesson she was giving that day would 
help others in fighting the terrible disease from which 
she suffered. Then all was in the past tense. Breath 
stopped again. The heart ceased to beat. She was on 
a boundless sea, calm and cool. She was sinking, 
sinking when she caught the life line again. This 
time she saw vaguely, kind, sad faces and competent 
hands. A cup was once more put to her lips. Feebly 
she sipped. "Make her drink it," said one. "Don't 
allow her to go to sleep," said another. 
Jane was soon back on shore again, a returned 
38 Within Hospital Walls 
voyager from a strange country. The borderland be- 
tween life and death had been explored, and there 
was no vision of the future, no sweeping pan- 
orama of the events of the past. It was a common- 
place journey, quickly enough accomplished, but carry- 
ing with it disastrous consequences. Chills and fever 
tugged at her life again. She did not want to have 
chills. She wanted to talk,-talk about serum reaction, 
and the scientific value of her experience. A French 
scientist was awarded the Nobel prize for writing 
about anaphylaxis. Could she not be allowed feeble 
mutterings while experiencing the condition? Would 
they get the phagocytic count now? Perhaps the 
serum was of no avail. Did one in ten thousand die 
from serum reaction? Was the sacrifice of that one 
worth while? These things Jane questioned plain- 
tively. It was so hard to make herself speak, but it 
was so important to try. 
A tall doctor bade her keep quiet, and with gentle 
hands himself spread a blanket over her. His manner 
was soothing; his wisdom convincing. 
Daylight passed into darkness; watchers departed; 
friends came and went; sobs were quickly stifled; and, 
as the night was turning into day, she slept. In the 
morning the battle with pain would go on. 
A little episode, as the world reckons such things, 
but of mighty import to Jane. Life will be more 
mysterious than ever for the experience. She had no 
regrets, no recriminations. 
If she had gone beyond recall? Jane says it would 
39 "Cheero!" 
still be well. All life is vicariously lived. That is 
the glory of it, and its justification. 
But whether one lives or dies, Jane says the most 
cheerful souls about a hospital are the young doc- 
tors. They are always kind and sympathetic, and 
vitally interested in their work. Whether in Sodom 
or Gomorrah this is true, and Jane has pleasant memo- 
ries of them, and insists that if ever she gets sick 
again, she will send for them all to a man, and feel 
perfectly safe in their hands. Thus has her once 
proud spirit been broken by hospital routine, and she 
is ready to swear fealty to a band of young medics 
who go about with one eye on business and the other 
on the pantry. 
But attending specialists, nurses, internes, and win- 
dow washers did not make up the hospital for Jane. 
There were her fellow prisoners as well, who came 
and went like fireflies over a summer meadow, while 
she stayed on and on. There was the old woman 
whose marital partner sickened and died while she 
was there, and they feared to tell her for some weeks, 
thinking she might have some sentiment in regard to 
him who had been the husband of her bosom for fifty 
years. When they did tell her, her very practical 
inquiry was, "How much money did he leave ?" Then 
there was the neighbor who visited Jane, and related 
graphically the whole story of her recent operation, 
omitting no details, and had just started in on one 
she underwent twenty-six years before, when an extra- 
mural visitor cut her short to tell about some floating 
40 Within Hospital Walls 
kidneys of her own. For poor Jane, it was almost 
a case of "out of the jaws of death into the mouth of 
hell." 
Then there were the sad cases that enlisted Jane's 
sympathy. She was much better at that time and was 
interested in all that pertained to her fellow sojourners 
in the hospital. She related many stories of this 
period, but asked particularly that I tell the one about 
the lukemia case. 
This patient was a long, lank, ill-favored son of 
the soil, and with him came his bright young bride 
with a mass of copper-colored hair. They were accom- 
panied by his parents, plain, old-fashioned folk who 
got acquainted with Jane very soon, and told her the 
story. The son was ill, but they did not know how 
seriously, when he was married. The week before 
they had put a mortgage on the farm, and brought 
him to the big city to consult the Great Doctor whom, 
the mother said, "could raise people from the dead." 
She expected a miracle. "Lazarus was raised," she 
said, "and Jairus' daughter," and they were not loved 
more than her son. Thus the simple mother with the 
sad soul kept encouraging herself. She and the father 
watched faithfully, and the girl with the copper-col- 
ored hair nursed lovingly while the tide of life ebbed 
away. 
Many lukemia cases came in, but it was only a 
question of time till they went out to another world, 
and Jane knew that her young friend would go that 
way, too. One who tarries long in a hospital learns 
41 "Cheero!" 
many things about those who come and go. Life 
and death seem mere catchwords, and the tragedies of 
individual cases are frequently forgotten. Where 
dying is a business, Jane says, the stress of sorrow 
is sometimes overlooked, but she could not forget the 
agony in the room down the hall. "So much to live 
for," the mother said, "with planting time coming 
on, and later the harvest." The bride said little, but 
her step became less elastic, and hope was dying in 
her eyes. 
One day Jane learned that the poor sick soul was 
struggling with the body, and they feared an attempt 
at self-destruction. To prevent this, a grating was 
placed in the window, an insult to poor overwrought 
nerves. Lukemia was bad enough, but gratings were 
worse, he said, and the girl-wife was in despair. The 
sick man raved about the hills and meadows and 
brooks, the doctors and medicine and hospitals. His 
wan, white face grew whiter and his hands less cer- 
tain. It was evident that gloom, like a salt sea fog 
was settling down upon the father and mother. "If 
the Great Doctor were only here," they muttered- 
and while they spoke, the Great Physician was hov- 
ering near for the case had gone to Him. 
One day he felt better, and, smiling weakly, said 
he would get well if he could go home, and lie on 
the grass with his head on spring violets, and his 
feet on the jonquils. He did not want the shining 
sheets, he wanted only green pastures. Jane heard 
of this, and by a strange coincidence that same day 
42 Within Hospital Walls 
some friends brought her a great basket of violets 
picked by themselves in the beautiful country fields. 
She carried them down the hall and gave them to 
the girl-wife with the breaking heart. The husband 
clutched at them eagerly, strewed them over his pil- 
low and buried his head in the purple fragrance. 
Then, smiling feebly, he crushed some into her hands, 
and sighed contentedly. Later he fell asleep mur- 
muring of the fields and the flowers while the young 
wife sat beside the bed with her face on his pillow. 
Morning with its restlessness came at last, and the 
sick man opened his eyes thinking only of violets and 
his bride. "More flowers," he cried. "It's like heaven 
here." He nestled again on his pillow of violets and 
clasped again the hands so dear to him, as he beck- 
oned his parents to come nearer. Again he slept, first 
fitfully, they told Jane, while they counted the pulse 
beats, then more quietly and peacefully till he was 
at rest. Dreaming of the beautiful fields in spring- 
time, his spirit floated away, and the girl with the 
copper-colored hair sat weeping alone. And Jane was 
puzzled over many things. 
Jane is a sociable soul, and enjoyed visitors of all 
kinds, even the ones who seemed to get religion and 
sickness mixed up, and whose conversation naturally 
drifted to the patient's chances for comfort in the 
remote future, where the wicked are said to cease 
from troubling-their neighbors probably-and the 
weary are at rest. If there is anything that tends to 
make membership in the heavenly choir attractive, it 
43 "Cheero!" 
is a hospital sentence. That in itself, without preach- 
ing should make a sick one involuntarily turn away 
from the world, the flesh, and the-doctors. 
People who visit the sick naturally fall into two 
classes just as all other folk do-those who have sense 
and those who haven't. Jane has a few friends of 
the latter class, and they visited her frequently, always 
crushing her hand in a gorilla-like grasp, and then sit- 
ting where she could not see them except by wrenching 
her neck, when they would proceed to relate all the 
unpleasant things that had recently come within their 
ken. The others always slip in like a ray of sunshine, 
seat themselves in just the right place, and make the 
minutes fly with pleasant chit-chat. Fortunately for 
the world, these are in the majority, at least Jane says 
they are, and she ought to know, for during the four 
months she was in the Sodom hospital, she had a rec- 
ord of three hundred and eighteen visitors and only 
four threw her into fits. 
Jane did not chafe under her long hospital resi- 
dence, though she often said the sameness of it was 
enough to give one softening of the brain, if that feat 
had not already been accomplished by the treatment. 
However, she was able to entertain herself despite 
the fact that she boasts no ladylike accomplishments 
such as knitting or whatever it is that real ladies do 
when they are ill. Jane's fancy work was done with 
pencil on paper while she was in the hospital, and 
in this way she commemorated her cure, while she 
burned incense before the renowned doctor who turned 
44 Within Hospital Walls 
her out into the cold, cold world, a woman bereft of 
her pet affliction, a mere wraith without rheumatism, 
but bearing up well under the loss. 
With the promise of freedom ringing in her ears, she 
invoked the Muse to help her epitomize the story of 
her long hospital sojourn, and she produced the fol- 
lowing, with due apologies to all concerned, as a sou- 
venir for her fellow sufferers whom she hoped soon 
to leave: 
CURING ARTHRITIS IN THE HOSPITAL IN 
GOMORRAH 
"Who are the patients screaming so?" said Interne- 
on-Parade. 
"It makes us mad; it makes us sad," the Special 
Nurses said. 
"I think I know, I have it now," said Interne-on 
Parade. 
"Oh! tell us quick; it makes us sick," the Special 
Nurses said. 
They are treating the arthritics in a very modern way 
By taking out their tonsils, scraping sinuses, and say, 
'Twould make your heart stop beating quite, to hear 
the sufferers pray, 
When they're treating their arthritis in the morning. 
''It's sad to see the young and old," said Interne-on- 
Parade. 
"Oh! yes, indeed, they're crippled so," the Special 
Nurses said. 
45 "Cheero!" 
"They've helpless been for many years," said Interne- 
on-Parade. 
"But never more will that be so," the Special Nurses 
said. 
No, no; oh! no, Doc Great Man's brain has driven out 
the pest. 
He calls in Dr. Tonsil, Dr. Stabber, and the rest; 
Doctors Slave and Carver too; the Interne boys (no 
jest) ; 
They all help to treat arthritis in the morning. 
"I'll tell you now, I'll tell you how," said Interne-on- 
Parade. 
"Oh! tell us now, oh! tell us how," the Special Nurses 
said. 
"A man as great as he can see" said Interne-on- 
Parade, 
"That helping pain is man's great gain," the Special 
Nurses said. 
So they're taking their opsonins, and are counting 
leucocytes; 
They've made vaccines from cultures, and they've 
watched for phagocytes. 
They're getting ready tubes of stuff (they'll need their 
nerve, all right), 
For one stabs their backs with serum in the morning. 
''Oh! my, Doc Great Man looks so glad," said Interne- 
on-Parade. 
46 Within Hospital Walls 
"He knows they're well, but he won't tell," the Special 
Nurses said. 
"He makes them stand, he makes them walk," said 
Interne-on-Parade. 
"We'd love to see him start them oxit," the Special 
Nurses said. 
Oh! he looks them in the eyes and cries, "Don't talk 
of pain, I say, 
But step right out, relax, relax, don't know too much, 
I pray, 
'Twill make you stronger now to hear, you'll shed 
your casts to-day." 
And arthritics will be walking in the morning. 
'Tis a pleasant thing to hear; they are all cheered 
up to-day, 
For they saw their Doctor Great Man in the morning. 
They are speechless now with joy, and can't sing 
more praise to-day, 
But they'll crown him up in Heaven some fine 
morning. 
After presenting this to Dr. Great Man, he hastily 
signed an order for her release, possibly on the ground 
that she was mentally unbalanced, though he was 
kind enough not to say so, and she went forth into 
the world offering a prayer that the hospital should 
know her no more forever. 
47 IV 
IN A WHEEL-CHAIR 
Ordinary people do not ordinarily ride in wheel- 
chairs after they are a few years old. They may 
ride in automobiles, street cars, on horses, or even 
hobbies, but outside of summer resorts and world's 
fairs, no mature person, unless seriously handicapped 
by nature-or art-would dream of tempting Fate in 
a wheel-chair. It is not a conveyance that has gained 
much popularity in the world of locomotion. It is an 
extra hazardous way of getting about, not so much 
because of the construction of the machine, as because 
of the construction of the mind of the operator. Yet 
a wheel-chair is a necessity in some otherwise well- 
regulated families-in Jane's, for instance. 
For years Jane seemed to have a monopoly on health 
and strength. Then suddenly she was seized with the 
illness whose history I am recording, and went through 
a long siege of arthritis, doctoritis, and hospitalitis, a 
trio that deprived her of her powers of locomotion, 
when she finally found herself an occupant of a wheel- 
chair. It is the story of this occupancy that she has 
asked me to tell because she thinks it is worth while 
as an experience and because there are about a hun- 
49 "Cheero!" 
dred thousand other rheumatics or arthritics, as you 
please, in the country who are in them or ought to be. 
The queerest thing about wheel-chair residence is 
the mental attitude of non-residents toward the occu- 
pant. They look on him indulgently as on a child, 
but they do not really take him seriously. If he does 
things that other people do, they are not allowed to 
pass as performances per se, but as performances in 
a wheel-chair. For instance, men are advertised as 
"wheel - chair preachers" ; "wheel - chair singers"; 
"wheel-chair thieves"; and "wheel-chair bandits," not 
merely as preachers, singers, thieves, and bandits. 
This in itself is disconcerting, for who would want 
to be mentioned as a one-eyed milliner, a knock-kneed 
broker, or a thumbless teacher? 
Really to get the most out of life, wheel-chair in- 
valids should be colonized in one fair spot where they 
could mingle unnoticed with the wheel-chair brigade. 
There it would be no confession of weakness to ride 
in a wicker contraption on wheels, only a sign of 
affluence. But the invalid wheel-chairer has no such 
sense of normality. He is queer, and she is queerer 
still. 
Jane had her first experience in a wheel-chair when 
she spent some weeks at a spa seeking a cure, before 
she knew that the only people cured at spas are those 
who have no ailments anyway. There she was rolled 
around by bell boys who used the halls and verandas 
as speedways. They dashed frantically around cor- 
ners and bumped into every possible post. It was 
50 In a Wheel-Chair 
wildly exciting, but somewhat disquieting to the 
nerves. If the object were to terrorize the patient 
into forgetting her original malady, it was accom- 
plished. It was not only hazardous for those in chairs, 
but also for those on foot. The place resolved itself 
into a hunting-ground filled with pursuers and pur- 
sued. In those exciting days when destruction was 
imminent, Jane with an effort could jump to safety. 
Later, however, she was obliged to stick to the wreck, 
if wreck there was to be, but she never again trained 
on such a race course. Perhaps it was well that she 
had such discipline at the beginning of her career. It 
steeled her nerve for hardships yet to come. 
Her next experience was in a sanitarium where she 
was recuperating from a four months' sojourn in a 
hospital. She was unable to walk at all, and when 
not in bed was in a rickety chair owned by the insti- 
tution, and propelled by her own nurse. Getting 
about there was fraught with much discomfort, be- 
cause the chair was too wide for most of the doors 
through which it had to pass, and it was only after 
a series of bumps for the chair and bruises for the 
rider that it was finally forced through. This made 
the day's travel somewhat perilous, as well as painful, 
and Jane's ejaculations uttered in self-preservation, 
were apparently regarded by onlookers as evidence of 
mental crippling. Now it is bad enough for an alert 
person to have crimps in her body without being ad- 
judged imbecile. It seemed as if anybody in the 
vicinity of the chair felt called upon to answer simple 
51 "Cheero!" 
questions put to Jane, as though she of the feeble 
feet could not be expected to go through the mental 
gymnastics incident upon saying, "Yes, it does look 
like rain," or "No, thank you, I don't care for cod- 
fish." Or if any one broached a serious subject such 
as a duty on wood pulp, or a full dinner pail for 
the masses, her nearest neighbor would answer for 
her. Jane inwardly protested much over this, for it 
soothed her soul to hear talk of something besides 
nerves and stomach ulcers. 
Just before the situation drove Jane insane, she 
wheeled her chair, figuratively speaking, to another 
quarter of the globe, and there the attitude toward 
her was different, but riding forth, an equally pre- 
carious pastime. Here, during a long hospital resi- 
dence incident to getting her disease cured, she was 
lifted into a wheel-chair whenever her misery per- 
mitted, and thus had her days enlivened by the change. 
As the months passed and it became evident that 
she was getting well, she was wheeled all over the 
hospital for recreation, and particularly enjoyed her 
afternoons in the sun-parlor with three men well along 
in years, and cherishing diseases of their own. They 
talked politics and pain, the emphasis on the former, 
with Jane a happy listener. Once one of the trio 
turned to her in the midst of tariff talk and asked 
indulgently, "What is your trouble?" When she re- 
plied, "rheumatism"-she was then aching in plaster 
casts-he said, "Humph, you're lucky," and plunged 
into a minute description of his abscess, and cursed 
52 In a Wheel-Chair 
the nurse and doctor for their bungling method of 
dressing it, and then passed on to politics. Jane gath- 
ered that the Democratic victory was responsible for 
it all till another veteran spoke up, and made it plain 
that without said victory they would all at that moment 
be blistering in the nether world. Jane of course, 
being a mere woman without a vote, was not ex- 
pected to have any views, which made it pleasant 
for her. 
It may seem passing strange that Jane who relig- 
iously wore a "Votes for Women" button should 
thus ally herself, on her afternoons out, with tyrant 
men instead of tyrant women. It happened thus. 
During about a thousand and one casual meetings 
with suffering members of her own sex, she found 
that talk turned to spring fashions, domestic prob- 
lems, and pain, with emphasis on the pain, and, as 
there was no sex reticence to veil revolting details, 
they were set forth baldly ad nauseam, and Jane, 
though in a wheel-chair, could not get away till her 
nurse appeared. So her comrades became mere males 
in wheel-chairs of their own, an ill-assorted group 
-an ex-congressman, an ex-college president, and an 
ex-army officer. The first and last had horns and 
hoofs showing, and an odor of brimstone about, dur- 
ing arguments, while the second was always trying 
to preserve peace, knowing full well that our institu- 
tions could not thrive if the country's vested interests 
were attacked. And Jane would egg them on until 
four nurses would appear, and wheel the strange quar- 
53 "Cheero!" 
tette off to their various rooms with promises to meet 
again. 
It may be mentioned in passing that Jane did not 
talk much about her sickness. She had principles 
against it, she said, but we all know it was because 
she could not get any one to listen to her, inasmuch 
as they were all pouring their woes into her ears. 
Later on, when she got more strength and had some 
use of her hands she could wheel her own chair a 
matter of a few feet when the din of disease discus- 
sion became unbearable. But keeping time with the 
rhythmic movements of her chair she could hear, 
"Yes, my wound discharges " "Your incision was 
not as long as mine." "They aspirate my stomach 
twice " "Oh! I've had those bismuth meals." "I 
stay in a wheel-chair because my back hurts me so," 
and "I fear I can never walk again." Jane vowed then 
and there that she would walk again, and away from 
the sounds of distress, and in time she did. Mean- 
while she sought to forget her own ills and help others 
forget theirs. This was all in self-protection, and 
besides she was not drawn to pathological anatomy 
or physiological pathology for diversion. It was bad 
enough, she thought, to be in the grip of disease, and 
furnishing laboratory material for the medical pro- 
fession without talking about it all the time. 
At last there came a day when Jane bade farewell 
to hospitals, for a time at least, and wheeled away 
to other scenes, the proud owner of a pair of crutches, 
54 In a Wheel-Chair 
which means, of course, that she acquired a new art, 
much to her delight. 
Heretofore Jane's wheeling had been done indoors 
or on verandas and roofs, now she entered into the 
second period, which included travel outdoors on high- 
ways and in parks. This was more exciting and 
likewise more dangerous, if the driver happened to 
be of the reckless variety. She came in touch at 
this time with the world of unknown but would-be 
sympathetic people who frequently stopped her prog- 
ress to ask questions. "Why do you have to go in 
that chair?" or "Is it rheumatism?" or "Did you have 
a stroke?" quoth they. And "You look well, why 
can't you walk?" a practical person would inquire. 
Now, nobody-unless perhaps a policeman-ever 
stopped an automobilist to ask, "Why, looking hale, 
dost thou ride?" or halt an equestrienne to hint that 
the walking is good. But a chair is different; it is 
not for the adult sans question. 
But on the whole, Jane says that people are kind 
even when they look sadly on as if to say, "You are 
not long for this world." And the one who ejac- 
ulated "poor thing" on passing meant well. 
Jane found that the stronger the sex, the stronger 
the expletive, as, for example, the six-foot man who 
passed and exploded to his companion "It's a 
shame for a woman to ride in a thing like that." His 
adjectival characterization of "shame" was of un- 
wonted vigor, and Jane was glad that there were no 
55 "Cheero!" 
innocent children or doctors, not to mention nurses, 
around to hear it. 
One day in the park, Jane was barricaded by books 
when a stranger passed and said: "Been that way 
long, lady? What are you reading?" Now Jane's 
literature included "African Game Trails" and "The 
New Freedom." The man looked startled when he 
saw the titles and passed on muttering "nobody home." 
She did not tell him that she carried them to block 
the wheels of her chariot when she wished to stop. 
The former kept it from progressing, while the latter 
kept it from retrogressing too far. But the dull man 
thought she was actually reading them, and believed 
it his duty to call the police. Some people have neither 
imagination nor humor. Such should never be per- 
mitted in or around wheel-chairs. 
It was during this period that Jane read omniv- 
orously. Reading was always a part of her profes- 
sional business, and the mere reading of one book 
was never an event to her. It took a five-foot shelf 
a day to keep her busy as her distracted relatives 
who provided the literature discovered. Nothing less 
than a well-equipped, modern book-store would suf- 
fice, they thought, if she were confined to a wheel- 
chair for many months. Volumes on history, politics 
and law, sociology, economics and psychology were 
piled up around the house much to Jane's delight. 
It came near being her undoing. Casual acquaint- 
ances heard of her hunger for books, and came with 
offerings of their own choosing. One kind woman 
56 In a Wheel-Chair 
brought "Sonnets from the Portuguese" in padded 
leather. Jane's wrath-after the lady left-was mag- 
nificent. She said it was bad enough to have a dis- 
ease dating back to antiquity without being suspected 
of having a mid-Victorian mind. "Hand me the 'Spoon 
River Anthology,' " she said; and wheeled into the 
sunshine. 
But the ordinary exploits of Jane paled before her 
great undertaking which was an imaginary trip around 
the world. She planned her trip in all its details, 
and achieved a great success in taking her wheel-chair 
around the world, or rather having her wheel-chair 
take her. She and one of her relatives nearly came 
to blows on the subject of taking the dog. Jane wished 
to take him because she thought it would be such 
valuable experience for him. The disagreement was 
finally settled amicably by Jane taking the dog. Since 
the trip was to be leisurely, there would be ample 
time to arrange for passports for domestic animals. 
They started from Gomorrah westward, like the 
course of empire, and in due time arrived home in 
safety since the trip was made before the Hohen- 
zollern ambition became an active menace to the 
world. Travel books and geographies are living crea- 
tures during a journey of this kind. 
Jane had a wonderful time, saw the most desirable 
things in the most fascinating parts of the world, 
and had no trouble with luggage, for she was never 
out of her wheel-chair, except to sleep, and she was 
gone three months. She recommends this trip with 
57 "Cheero!" 
variations to suit the individual taste, to the whole 
wheel-chair fraternity. Airships and wireless teleg- 
raphy and giant steamships are all right in their place, 
but for the last word in luxurious round-the-world- 
travel appointments, Jane says, commend her to a 
wheel-chair and a lively imagination. Other people 
with brains more nimble than heels could take the 
grand tour, too, and carry memories more satisfying 
than those of continental tables d'hote. Jane is very 
enthusiastic about such travel. She maintains that, 
for any disease, it is better than doctors and drugs, 
and not so costly. She says she was feted by kings, 
porters, emperors, and suffragettes as her fancy dic- 
tated. She never had to look at a museum or a grave; 
never was jostled by her own or other people's coun- 
trymen ; never had to lock up her wrath or her purse; 
and never grew purple in the face trying to make 
her wants known in an unknown tongue. She trav- 
eled ten or ten-hundred miles an hour as she pleased, 
and never ran into a privately conducted party or 
ran down the medical profession. This alone was a 
notable experience particularly since she personally 
investigated the thousand and one rheumatism cures 
and after-cures on the European continent. 
Curing rheumatism at resorts seems to be one of 
the great industries of the world. How it has escaped 
the ban of the medical profession is one of the mys- 
teries of the age when curing this or anything else 
by means of more or less secret formulae has stirred 
the profession to the depths. Jane says the most 
58 In a Wheel-Chair 
satisfactory way to visit these resorts is to make an 
imaginary trip in a wheel-chair; and she should know 
since she has visited many in person as well as in 
spirit. She remembers particularly one place where 
the authorities got the human alimentary tract mixed 
up with the week's laundry, and administered large 
doses of ordinary washing soda. The vogue for this 
was great for some years. Still another place inad- 
vertently exchanged the national pharmacopoeia or 
the materia medica for a cook book, and used a recipe 
for tea biscuits instead of an indicated cure for rheu- 
matism. Large dosage of bicarbonate of soda was 
the resulting treatment. Jane says imaginary wheel- 
chair visits are the best kind to make to such resorts, 
whether they are located at home or in alien lands. 
However, she wants it clearly understood that she is 
not leading any movement to put health resorts out 
of business, she only objects to their picking rheu- 
matics for their prey. They should take bald-headed 
men for instance, or any other class able to play ball 
with the prescription, but to bait the helpless wheel- 
chair fraternity seems despicable. She wishes some 
one would write a manual on "Wheel-Chair Tactics" 
that would teach the occupants how to ward off such 
attacks. Something evidently is needed. Perhaps it 
is the development of class consciousness among the 
chair ridden. Yet it might be difficult to find invalids 
willing to consign themselves to a wheel-chair class. 
It would savor too much of an admission of defeat. 
Wheel-chair invalids always hope to be well some 
59 "Cheero!" 
day, and that makes them individualists rather than co- 
operative derelicts. This being the case, they will have 
to roll along according to their own sweet wills even 
if they do bump into "cures" once in a while. 
Jane says a term in a wheel-chair is a liberal edu- 
cation. First there is the chair itself. There are 
almost as many makes as there are of automobiles, 
but there are seldom any new models. The first one 
was patented before the deluge, and used to carry 
the rheumatic sample into the ark. Others have been 
made since, but they do not show much improve- 
ment. Jane designed one, and had it built according 
to her own specifications in the face of great oppo- 
sition on the part of the builder, who maintained at 
first that it could not be made because the like had 
not been made before. She called it her runabout, 
and got much pleasure out of it for a time. She later 
experimented with modifications on manufacturer's 
standard makes, and managed to get some comfort 
out of the various chairs. Reading wheel-chair cata- 
logues is as diverting as reading fashion magazines, 
and not so exciting for an invalid. 
After the chair itself come the accessories, a study 
of which develops many qualities, chief among which 
is credulity. A mere well person could never imagine 
what an unexplored field there is in wheel-chair equip- 
ment. It is a delight to roam therein. But Jane says 
the mortal mind that designed it all could never have 
tried to put it to personal use; it was only made to 
sell. Then, too, one can get a modicum of excite- 
60 In a Wheel-Chair 
ment from a chair. Once Jane was riding merrily 
along when a wheel came off, but a serious accident 
was averted. "Surely," she said, "this is the hectic 
life." It was as exciting as the time she was run 
over by another wheel-chair at a moving-picture show. 
She said she felt after that, that she needed outriders 
for protection. The time her chair almost turned over 
backwards, and she narrowly averted a broken neck, 
she said she felt the need of an anchor. 
But the funniest thing of all was the escapade of 
old Dobbin, alias the old-clothes-man's horse when 
he sighted Jane at a crossing. He shied like a colt 
and raced driverless with distended nostrils down the 
street. All the urchins ran out; un-pedigreed curs 
assembled; and the army of alley cats hunched up 
its back collectively and individually; and it took 
a policeman to restore order. It was surely enough 
to make at least a professional mourner laugh. Since 
then Jane runs, figuratively speaking, at sight of a 
horse. The streets became a vast play-ground for 
Jane as she wheeled about in her chair. She was 
always an object of interest to children who could 
not understand so large a go-cart. "Are you a baby?" 
one said before his nurse got her hand over his mouth. 
Once a four-year old inquired, "Did you break your 
leg?" Upon Jane's negative reply, he stared hard 
with a puzzled look, but finally came back with, "Did 
you break both legs?" 
Jane maintains that every street and alley becomes 
a Great White Way with its numerous attractions 
61 "Cheero!" 
when one rides forth in a wheel-chair. Dullness 
vanishes from life. Then, too, there is an element 
of danger which is just sufficient to keep one stimu- 
lated, and to give each ride an interest of its own. 
Many social conventions are ignored when one 
rides abroad in a wheel-chair. Strange people speak 
in passing as they often do in the human and beau- 
tiful country, and Jane genially responds. There is 
one kind of stranger however, to whom Jane objects. 
It is the important person who breezes by with a 
stereotyped smile directed toward the invalid, as if 
to say "I'll let a little of my sunshine light up your 
dull life!" People who can walk about have no mo- 
nopoly on sunshine. Another pest that one encounters 
in a wheel-chair is the distributer of tracts bearing 
"glad" messages. Jane says she can think her own 
"glad" thoughts. Real estate and grocery adver- 
tising, on the other hand, furnish entertainment, for, 
she says, she never has been able to think her own 
real estate and food thoughts. 
Passing doctors usually give an interested and more 
or less proprietary glance at a wheel-chair occupant 
as if to say "kamerad." Jane always says that medi- 
cal men are the best-natured creatures on earth, other- 
wise they would be in a wild frenzy of despair over 
their failures that stare at them on all sides. But the 
sight of ninety and nine wheel-chair patients on parade 
is more than compensated for by the one who recov- 
ered from measles. It is an enviable disposition to 
have, Jane thinks, and commends it to all of a pessi- 
62 In a Wheel-Chair 
mistic turn of mind. But a physician in a wheel- 
chair of his own is a pathetic sight. Jane says she 
has known two in this plight, and they were both 
shrouded in the deepest gloom, and indulged in hair- 
raising profanity. She explained this on the ground 
that they, better than laymen, knew the utter ineffi- 
ciency of their own profession, and, therefore, were 
absolutely without hope. A little false hope is some- 
times very encouraging, but taken as a regular diet 
it is debilitating. One does not need to be in a wheel- 
chair, however, to learn this; he who runs may read it. 
Jane says that life in a wheel-chair is after all 
about what one makes it, just like life elsewhere, and 
any one with the desire may extract abundant joy 
from the passing days spent anywhere above ground. 
Finally, after all her many experiences, Jane found 
that she no longer needed the wheel-chair except for 
days of "Auld Lang Syne," since she was so well and 
so strong that she could occupy the family chairs, 
and get about somewhat as normal mortals do. The 
kind Fates had commuted her sentence, and she rushed 
off gaily to make a figurative bonfire of all the trap- 
pings of invalidism before emerging into her old life 
again, a year or two behind the times. She says the 
journey was a long one, and very rough in places, 
but the scenery on the whole was good. Yet after 
all is said and done, wheel-chairs are very good if 
you only know how to manage them, and we must 
admit that Jane was master as well as mistress of 
hers. 
63 V 
THE SOCIAL WHIRL 
Going about again was a great joy to Jane. She 
was always a sociable creature and liked people better 
than anything else in the world, unless perhaps dogs. 
She always said her idea of a happy home was a place 
where the door-bell rang all day, and the dogs had 
to be pried off the sofa to make room for guests. 
Sickness, therefore, did not seem to be in her line 
at all-she only accepted it as a side line anyway, 
intending to discontinue it at an early date. 
She was very happy to go about a little, even with 
such impedimenta as chairs and crutches. She went 
to a luncheon or two near home as a sort of pre- 
liminary skirmish before motoring off forty miles to 
spend the afternoon. That, indeed, was a triumph for 
her, particularly as the rain beat down on the return 
trip. The closed car kept her body perfectly dry, but 
her soul rejoiced in the wetness. She always loved 
a rainy day. Of course she was still tied to the apron- 
strings of the medical profession, and could not wan- 
der very far away. In fact she had not the strength 
to do much, but she was so thankful for small favors 
65 "Cheero!" 
that she put the rest of us, with our greater privileges, 
to shame. 
But the great event was a first-night box party at 
the theatre, for Gomorrah was gay in those ante-war 
days when it was no shame to put on new clothes 
without a Red Cross button in sight. When you have 
not been out of the house after nightfall, except per- 
haps in an ambulance, for several years, it must be 
quite exciting to spin toward the Rialto, and bask in 
the bright lights. Jane found it so that eventful June 
night and was as gay as a lark when she got home 
toward midnight. She said it was a grand and glorious 
feeling to be out like a normal human being again. The 
drama presented on the stage was only part of the 
enjoyment for her. The newsboys on the street, the 
gamins at the windows, the trampers on the pave- 
ments, and the men and women everywhere made the 
evening a delight to her. She says no one who has 
not been imprisoned for a time can understand the 
joy of seeing many people moving around. Next to 
the pleasure of moving about oneself is that of see- 
ing others moving. At least that is ,what Jane thinks, 
and she ought to know. She says no one who likes 
motion should ever be allowed to get mixed up with 
rheumatism, which doesn't move much except to tears. 
After achieving a box party, Jane plunged madly 
into the social vortex. That is what she said. She 
went to two dinners, a highbrow luncheon, and a low- 
brow tea in three weeks. She who used to flit gaily from 
66 The Social Whirl 
one social gathering to another as a relaxation from 
the serious work of life. But now even a little gaiety 
satisfied her, for she thought she was getting well. 
Pains and aches were with her still, but they would 
go away sometime she knew, and that thought kept 
her happy. Friends were very kind, too, and arranged 
many little pleasures for her. Even one of her quasi- 
foes in the medical profession invited her to a dinner 
at a well-known pleasure park within the confines 
of Gomorrah, and he never took her temperature or 
looked at her tongue during the evening, although he 
did order her home at nine o'clock while the other 
guests were allowed to remain for the dancing. Jane 
said she did not mind that at all, because she always 
thought a pair of crutches would be zero as a dancing- 
partner. While wooden heads seem to get on very 
well in the ball-room, wooden legs are a bit awkward. 
On this account, Jane went home willingly, after 
promising her host to write him a sonnet in memory 
of the occasion. She wrote an "Owed" because it was 
easier, and the medic did not know the difference 
anyway. The only feet he knows anything about are 
rheumatic, and he doesn't know much about those! 
He would send halting metrical feet to an orthopaedic 
surgeon, and expect them to come tripping home in 
fine form. But he was satisfied, and asked her as a 
special favor to him to insert the lines here. She does 
this, trusting they will escape the eye of Alfred Noyes, 
or be drowned out by the strains of a barrel organ. 
67 "Cheero!" 
OWED TO A DOCTOR 
There's a band of music playing across the garden 
wall 
In Gomorrah as the sun sinks low. 
The music is Teutonic,-'tis the cooks who make it 
sweet, 
And entice the rabble there to How. 
Aye, entice the highbrows, even medics from their 
lairs 
To surround the bands of music playing loudly 
half the night. 
And it won a reputation as they ambled in in pairs 
To the tables with the soft subduing light. 
One medic had a patient who tormented him by day 
With her everlasting begging for a change, 
Till he feared his amber locks were turning gray. 
Then he thought him of the gardens within range 
And quickly planned a party for the shrew. 
In an ecstasy the patient said she'd go; 
(He invited other friends, and family too.) 
She liked the doc's prescription, and frankly told 
him so. 
One day the doctor helped her 
Into his beauteous car, 
And rushed her helter-skelter- 
The ride was not so far- 
Past all things, never asking pardon, 
Straight to the Summer Garden, 
Where, all dressed up in Sunday clothes, 
68 The Social Whirl 
The ladies sat at table. 
The doctor from the menu chose 
Such food-it seems a fable! 
A.h! then the music caught the throng 
With Wagnerian notes of praise, 
But did not hold it very long, 
The dressed-up, painted jays. 
The doctor and his party laughed 
In rapturous bliss exalted 
And Wagner, Sousa (no not Seipp) they quaffed 
And called for milk-not malted. 
To gardens go in twilight time, in twilight time, in 
twilight time, 
To gardens go in twilight time (it isn't far from 
drug stores). 
And you shall stumble crutch in hand across this 
lovely wonderland; 
To gardens go in twilight time (it isn't far from 
drug stores). 
There's a band of music playing across the garden 
wall 
In Gomorrah as the sun sinks low; 
Though the music's only Wagner, there's a cook to 
make it sweet. 
And enliven it with chowder, beer and meat. 
The doctor and his party, they thought it quite a 
treat, 
69 "Cheerof 
To sit and calmly gaze about, removed from city 
heat, 
In the garden where the band plays on. 
So it's doctor dear, and doctor seer, 
What have we to say 
When you give us food and cheer, 
An eventful day? 
All around your big, big head, 
We'll tie a wreath of roses. 
That is what they said, 
Sure, I counted noses. 
So take the wreath of roses while you may; 
The guests are all in spirits gay, 
And swear you're never made of clay. 
(Hark! did you hear a bray?) 
To gardens go in twilight time, in twilight time, in 
twilight time, 
To gardens go in twilight time (it isn't far from 
drug stores). 
And you shall stumble crutch in hand across this 
lovely wonderland; 
To gardens go in twilight time (it isn't far from 
drug stores). 
The entertainment was voted a great success by all 
the participants, and its commemoration in song created 
some mirth. Jane says it does not take much to amuse 
adults; with children the situation is different. No 
70 The Social Whirl 
child would be amused by a vaudeville performance, 
for instance, yet grown-ups will almost go into hys- 
terics over the silliest antics on the stage, as for ex- 
ample when the star comes out, looks at a brother 
performer, then, with a wink at the audience, says 
confidentially "nobody home." Jane maintains that 
she got unlimited fun out of feebler efforts than this 
when she was associating with doctors and nurses in 
the hospital. This being the case, she says she is willing 
to add her quota to the day's foolishness by writing 
parodies or anything else the doctor orders. 
Jane said she felt quite like a debutante during 
those exciting days when she was going into "society" 
again, and everybody took an interest in entertaining 
her. The most pleasurable thing about an illness, she 
says, is getting over it, coming out as it were. But 
we all felt that it was not going out among people 
again, as much as being able to do some work that 
kept Jane's spirits up during the trying months of 
convalescence. She wrote much those days, and tried 
to rehabilitate herself in the world of occupational 
interest. Her medical directors prohibited work, in- 
cluding reading, except light literature, which only 
shows what poor psychologists they were. Jane says 
light literature makes her light-headed and heavy- 
hearted, and as she saw no reason for bringing about 
those anatomical changes in herself, she refused to 
indulge. Sociological treatises would bring some of 
us to the breaking point, not so Jane, and the way- 
faring doctor though a fool should have discovered 
71 "Cheero!" 
this. However, it did not really matter since Jane took 
affairs into her own hands in prescribing and pro- 
scribing mental pabulum. 
While in the social whirl, Jane made a two weeks' 
visit to a country house, and was like a "fresh air" 
child in her enjoyment of the beautiful outdoors. Yet 
places never mattered much to Jane, people seemed 
so much more important to her. This was fortunate, 
inasmuch as her disease did not make her very lively 
in getting about from place to place. 
After her return to Gomorrah, Jane gave a party 
and bade all her friends come and drink tea. It was 
a festive occasion. It was all in the day's work for 
her friends, but it was an all-day work for Jane. 
Which only shows what a greedy thing is arthritis 
when it takes a strangle hold on a person's strength. 
Once Jane went forth to a public banquet where 
twelve hundred working-women sat down to celebrate. 
She thought then that the mere fact that they were 
able to work was worth celebrating. That was the 
reason she promised to lift up her voice in public 
once more. She had had a long vacation from after- 
dinner speaking and was anxious to know if she could 
prattle acceptably. But she never knew because the 
morning papers devoted their space to her crutches! 
"Invalid Heroine of Banquet" they said. "Woman 
who had not walked for years got out of bed to at- 
tend. Carried on shoulders of girls!" This, and 
more, greeted Jane's astonished eyes. It was ever 
thus. Peculiarities stamp one indelibly. It is as hard, 
72 The Social Whirl 
she maintains, to live down a sickness as it is to live 
down a prison sentence, and any one knows that is no 
sinecure. She had been lifted about by Irishmen and 
Swedes, but to be carried by wage-earning women 
on dress parade! Never! It sounded like a hazing 
story. Jane had talked of going on the Chautauqua 
Circuit, but the banquet seemed to take away the ambi- 
tion. She said she feared her most impassioned utter- 
ances on "Teutonic Barbarities," for instance, would 
never get over the top. The papers would only report 
"Lady Orator lifted to Platform in Wheel-Chair." 
And the manufacturer of the chair would want his 
placard on the back. Or they would say, "Orator 
to-day just recovering from long conflict with the 
medical profession. She uses Bailey's safety crutch 
tips." 
She decided that the advertising business offered 
a more promising field for her endeavor, but she has 
not yet entered it. Jane talked of the many things 
she would do when she recovered. She wanted to do 
something really exciting like putting on a three-ring 
circus or staging a great drama, but she wished to 
be a spectator or manager rather than an actor. She 
said she had already been a circus performer too 
long, having jumped at the snap of the doctors' whip 
for several years, only the jumping was mental instead 
of physical, rheumatism not being given to much 
jumping except from joint to joint. 
This was the time in Jane's career that casual ac- 
quaintances used to ask her if the days seemed very 
73 "Cheero!" 
long. As if the days could ever seem long to an 
adult with an ounce of brains to rattle around in her 
skull! Jane says they have never been long to her 
since she was ten years old and it seemed an eternity 
from one Christmas to the next. But those were the 
days when a full stocking meant more to her than 
a full dinner pail to a Bolshevik. 
Jane says we have talked enough about her petty 
social achievements. She does not wish to appear 
too elated over a few luncheons and dinners, and 
teas and plays and rides, and shopping tours and 
movies, lest some one might think she regards such 
things as the very stuff of life. She does not. She 
thinks useful work with its exhilaration and weari- 
ness, yes, and its monotony, the thing that is really 
worth while, and the longer she is disabled, the more 
eager she is to do some manual labor. In fact she 
says all labor is largely manual, and the proletariat 
is not far wrong in regarding it as the only kind worth 
considering. If you don't agree with her, have your- 
self bound hand and foot and see how much effective 
mental work you can do! But Jane enjoyed every- 
thing, and was duly thankful for the powers she had. 
She said she reminded herself of her baby nephew 
who after first casting an appraising eye over his 
breakfast tray, and seeing only cereal, piously closed 
his eyes, and said "Our Faaver, we sank you for good 
oatmeal. Amen." It may be more intelligent to pick 
and choose your joys, but it is easier to get your joys 
out of the things the Fates have picked and chosen 
74 The Social Whirl 
for you. She is, therefore, satisfied with this brief 
account of her social exploits as well as with the ex- 
ploits themselves. 
It must be apparent to the innocent bystander as 
well as to the wayfaring man that Jane has endured 
much since she committed her first indiscretion by 
getting sick, and her second by trying to extract infor- 
mation concerning said sickness from the doctors. 
But she survived all this, and likewise the hospitals, 
and crawled back to seeming good health. She is 
now ready to forgive and forget. But before blot- 
ting the experience from her memory forever, she 
wishes me to assemble her fellow travelers at a fare- 
well banquet, wheatless and meatless, where she can 
propose the following toasts: 
Arthritis: "A friend that sticketh closer than a 
brother." 
The Doctors: "Oh! wad some power the giftie 
gie us." 
Her Family: "Faithful unto death." 
Her Fellow Sufferers Everywhere: "For man is 
man and master of his fate." 
Jane now closes the story of her convalescence with 
a few words from a language still used in medical 
prescriptions, though largely unintelligible to all con- 
cerned. 
"Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit," which 
being interpreted-with necessary substitutions by the 
drug clerk-is: 
75 "Cheero!" 
"For in the hereafter, methinks 'tis, 
When we all have grown hoary with age, 
We'll laugh over even arthritis, 
And think of the doctors sans rage." 
And Jane, looking forward to a future in her busy 
world, called back to her fellow travelers, "Keep well, 
but if you get sick, keep happy." 
76 VI 
RELAPSES 
Jane's victory over her foe seems to have been just 
camouflage. At any rate, she was unable to make 
a durable peace, for hostilities have broken out from 
time to time since she announced her conquest, and 
each time she has lost some advantage she thought 
she had gained. She says her medical allies made 
a serious mistake. They interned the alien germs in 
her body instead of deporting them. They might have 
known that the streptococci crowd could not be trusted 
even in an internment camp. But medical men are so 
credulous where their own achievements are con- 
cerned ! They formulate theories, and confuse them 
with facts. Jane says the profession of medicine is 
not a science; it is an art-a lost art. Doctors, how- 
ever, are good sports. They will take a chance any 
time. But in this she says they are not more reckless 
than the clergy or teachers, the only difference being 
that the former take risks with the mortal body, while 
the latter only tamper with immortal souls. But, after 
all, doctors are advancing along many lines, with 
Jane's disease for instance. They can now produce 
it in guinea pigs. 
79 "Cheero!" 
Some of the more credulous medics, taking a leaf 
from the psycho-therapeutist's book, think that by 
looking very severe, and saying "scat" to a disease, 
and printing an article about it in a medical journal 
it will "scat." But Jane's wouldn't do that, and thereby 
hangs many a tale. Jane says that relapses may prove 
quite as interesting as the original illness if taken 
in the right spirit. There are always new remedies 
to be meditated upon, and, if one becomes quite vin- 
dictive, they may even be tried. The mind of man 
has nev^^M^M^wearyofinyenti.n^-^ures for-rheu- 
-can never #hile*a 
vista^dUUI^^^^en^^ut before the alfiicted 
one. Neither can life be without hope, since they all 
offer health and vigor unreservedly. Now no suf- 
ferer can feel otherwise than cheerful when she knows 
that in the corner drug store stands a bottle that 
has cured unconditionally all the Smiths and Joneses 
on this side of the river Jordan. It gives a feeling 
of preparedness raised to the nth power. It is like a 
standing army to a country in dread of invasion. 
Jane says that relapses are not only interesting; they 
are broadening as well. And, moreover, they teach 
one to be modest and unassuming about announcing 
a complete restoration to health. Such announcement 
may be premature, like the Teutons' claim to a great 
naval victory in the battle of Jutland. Relapses teach 
one to back down gracefully, and anything that can 
make a rheumatic back up or down, gracefully or the 
other way, ought to be welcomed. Relapses also 
80 Relapses 
serve to make clear the essentials of content in life, 
and they show how little, after all, outward things 
and conditions have to do with a happy heart. One 
must take life as one finds it, in sickness as in health. 
Any other attitude savors of stupidity, from which 
crass sin Jane prays to be delivered. 
All these things have been brought home to Jane 
during the last two years during which she has been 
speculating much upon her rise and fall, and trying 
to discover some satisfactory cause-the doctors' 
causes-«did mot jca^ryxonvktioi^w^^^^l^^^e says 
theAvar^sfor herv^^fljMbmp 
which^cam^ to 
arrest any one's recovery to have the Germans march 
out to trample civilization in the dust. What self- 
respecting invalid could go on convalescing in the 
face of such a tragedy? Jane entered the struggle 
in spirit with Kitchener's First Hundred Thousand, 
and she went for the duration of the war. She is 
now back of the American Lines doing canteen work 
or something of the sort. But I anticipate. 
Jane's interest in her disease has not been so keen 
since that first piratical act of Germany. She says 
her first desire is to wipe out Teuton greed, and after 
that arthritis. But we finally persuaded her to go 
on with the fight against her relapses as an initial 
measure in the greater struggle. Even Jane's ene- 
mies, if she has any, must admit that she went to the 
front again bravely and fought well to recover lost 
ground. She again served term after term in the 
81 "Cheero!" 
hospital, more than a year in all; she had the same 
old doctors, and many new ones; she was cut and 
scraped, bathed and baked, as if these things had never 
been done before; and she went through it with all 
her old time zest. The doctors were very lenient in 
spite of the fact that she was a chronic case. It is 
a well-known fact that a doctor regards a chronic 
case as a chronic insult, and it is customary to pass 
the insult along to a brother physician. But Jane did 
not wish to be passed on. She feared she might go 
farther and fare worse. And, fortunately, Dr. Great 
Man knew that one recidivist more or less could not 
dim the brilliance of his reputation, therefore, he con- 
tinued to supervise Jane. He pursued heroic meas- 
ures too, and Jane was as heroic as the measures. He 
called in his brothers of the Knife, and they added 
operation after operation to her list. She says being 
gassed in Flanders could hold no terrors for her, after 
her experiences with anaesthetists. 
After a time, as Jane concluded that she was re- 
lapsing along in too care-free a manner, she decided 
to ask the doctor to tell her definitely why she did 
not get well, and just what her trouble was. This was 
a hazardous proceeding since doctors do not think 
such matters are any concern of the patients. How- 
ever, Dr. Great Man consented to waive the proprieties 
for once, and this is in effect what he said to Jane: 
"While we cannot speak with any degree of definite- 
ness until after your autopsy, we can at least describe 
what seems to be your condition in a few simple 
82 Relapses 
words. Yours is a chronic arthritis due to patho- 
genic bacteria, probably a strain of the streptococcus 
viridans; the mode of infection is hematogenous and 
from a focal infection. The anatomical changes are 
due to endothelial proliferation or embolism in the 
small arteries. Your infection shows a tendency to 
fibrinoplastic exudate. Malnutrition in your case 
leads to secondary metabolic changes causing in their 
turn hyperplastic or atrophic changes in joints, tendons 
and muscles; thus showing clearly that you have both 
proliferative or hypertrophic and degenerative or 
atrophic arthritis. Chronic arthritis deformans due to 
a streptococcus invasion is often associated with 
chronic myositis, and it may be a peri-arthritis, a 
synovitis and osteo-arthritis or even a pan-arthritis. 
Indeed you may even have an osteomj^elitis, involving 
the epiphysis. 
"Among subsidiary ills, we note an erythema no- 
dosum which sometimes occurs as a part of a syn- 
drome which consists of polymorphic skin lesions, 
hyperemia, edema, and hemorrhage frequently asso- 
ciated with arthritis. There may be visceral crises, 
especially gastro-intestinal, endocarditis, hematuria, 
and peliosis rheumatica. 
"You also have an accompanying iridocyclitis due 
to infection, anaphylaxis or faulty metabolism." 
After this gas attack from a big gun, Jane felt for 
a moment that her autopsy was at hand. But only for 
a moment, for in imagination she could hear the sound 
of other bursting shells, and the tramp of English 
83 "Cheero!" 
soldiers, far away on Flanders' field, pressing onward 
to the foe, and above it all from gas-choked throats 
came their slogan, "Cheero!" It went echoing and 
re-echoing along the lines, and again and again she 
heard "CheeroI" This was a time for courage. 
Jane's British-American blood ran hot. She thought 
of Ypres, and Courcelette and Vimy Ridge, where her 
countrymen pushed through gas to glory, and she 
thought of her brave young American brothers win- 
ning their spurs on the West Front, and helping so 
valiantly to save the world, and she said "Who am 
I to yield?" Then back to the clinicians entrenched 
behind polysyllables came Jane's counter attack, "Life 
is more than edema, and the body than cholecystitis. 
Neither saprophytic bacteria, nor streptococci, nor 
staphylococci nor fusiform anaerobes, nor anything 
else that is pathogenic can ever touch the human spirit, 
or blot the image of the Eternal from the human 
heart. 'Cheero'!" 
Jane is now a professional invalid; formerly she 
was only an amateur. It is not the profession she 
would have selected for herself, but since it was thrust 
upon her she says she would like to adorn it. Speak- 
ing of adornment, Jane never took kindly to the habil- 
iments of invalidism. Be-ribboned and be-flowered 
caps and negligees made no lasting appeal. She says 
that for the last word in desirable attire, she would 
select rubbers and raincoat, with a folding umbrella 
in the pocket. This, however, is not a costume that 
has gained much popularity with the bed-ridden. In 
84 Relapses 
her palmy days, Jane always delighted in cloudy skies 
and pattering rain. Perhaps that is the reason she 
has been able to withstand so well the deluge of 
misfortune that came with each relapse. By all the 
rules of rheumatism of course she should hate the 
rain as if it were a Prussian Junker, but Jane never 
did learn the rules of the game. It may be as well so, 
since she will still have that pleasure in store when 
she is through relapsing. 
Doctors have a peculiar way of dealing with a re- 
lapser, Jane found. Whenever any new condition 
appears, they order the patient to buy something. In 
this way, Jane has, during the last two years, acquired 
enough apparatus of one kind or another to stock 
a reconstruction hospital. She has electrical appli- 
ances galore; bakers and therapeutic lamps, braces 
and splints, elastic bandages and knee supports, rolls 
and pillows, and the whole fraternity of air cushions 
and book-rests and adjustable writing tables, not to 
mention many inconspicuous and less bulky contrap- 
tions. Jane said she had elaborate plans, at one time, 
for selling these things, but she discovered later that 
it was not possible even to give them away. The best 
she has ever been able to do was to lend one of them 
for a short time. It is impossible to lose them. Of 
course Jane does not buy hospital supplies now. It is 
not necessary; she has them all. The possession of 
these things helps to make Jane's journeyings from 
place to place more or less spectacular. And Jane 
did journey during her relapses. Once they carried 
85 "Cheero!" 
her from wintry cold to a sunny clime, but the trip 
proved her complete undoing. The pneumococcus 
followed her and joined forces with the streptococcus 
in a fight that was well-nigh fatal to Jane. And while 
she was hovering around the border land, knowing 
nothing of the happenings of life, her beautiful and 
beloved mother far away slipped without warning 
through the black shadows, and into the dawn, leav- 
ing the world a desolate place for Jane. But oh! the 
wonderful memories! 
Weary weeks of suffering were followed by partial 
recovery, and Jane finally returned to Gomorrah, 
where she was again under the care of her doctors. 
She says she had to work very hard at this time to 
keep up their interest. She thought they felt like 
the elevator man at the hospital whose greeting was: 
"I never expected to see you back here alive." 
Of course it is an affront to a doctor for a patient 
to keep on getting worse after he had said she was 
well. But what can the poor patient do about it? 
Jane would gladly have been more polite, but the 
disease she entertains is so rude, and no wonder since 
it has associated with all sorts and conditions of men 
for centuries. 
However, Jane's time of freedom was at hand. 
With the entrance of the United States into the war, 
all her doctors-and she had a whole battalion-rushed 
headlong into the army. Jane had many doctors, not 
from choice, but because treating by syndicate is the 
modern way. The method commends itself to the 
86 Relapses 
profession on account of the difficulty it presents 
for fixing blame when the casualty lists come in. But, 
be this as it may, her doctors are all serving their 
country now as captains and majors abroad, behind 
the lines, in the cantonments, as advisers to the gov- 
ernment, and as leaders of commissions to far-away 
lands. They are a busy lot, and Jane is sure they 
will be very successful since their patients are all 
able-bodied men. Taking care of sick people must 
be stupid work, especially when they haven't the wit 
to get well. 
Jane, too, was obsessed with a desire to do war 
work. It seemed to her that all the women in the 
world except herself were singing the song of "knit 
two, purl two," and almost losing their minds over 
the Kitchener toe. Naturally she wanted to lose her 
mind over something, too, but since she could not find 
a task suited to her disability, she decided to appeal 
once more to Dr. Great Man. He had helped her in 
other emergencies, and he might in this. In order to 
get his attention she sent him the following letter, 
which is hardly in regulation letter form, but her 
disease does not run true to form either: 
Oh! great and honored and 
Honorable Colonel Great Man 
Of the State Council of Defense, 
General adviser to the nation, 
And practitioner of medicine 
On the side- 
87 "Cheero!" 
Hear my wail of discontent. 
Anxious am I to serve my country, 
But unable because of grievous illness 
For which there seems no balm 
In Gilead or elsewhere. 
Have you no plan 
For mobilizing derelicts? 
Must I sit suffering in my chair forever 
When I would fain fare forth 
To slay Germans, or surgeons, 
Or any other pirates 
That prey upon the world? 
My mind is tethered to my tortured body. 
And cannot forge ahead. 
For many moons 
Have I endured torments 
That make purgatory 
Seem a veritable paradise 
By comparison. 
Tears well up in my eyes, 
Sobs shake my soul, 
When I consider that I cannot enlist 
Under the Y.W.C.A., the Red Cross, 
Or any other banner. 
You must admit, Oh, Colonel, 
That I have had a raw deal, 
And should not be expected 
To contemplate 
My condition with calmness. 
Forgive me if I say that in case of future ills, 
88 Relapses 
I would rather trust my body 
To a plumber 
Than to a surgeon. 
No hope lies ahead 
Unless you can point a way 
For me to serve my country. 
In similar straits, the tortured, muddled male 
Would find his emotional expression 
In profanity. 
No such soul surcease is mine. 
With all the womans inhibitions, 
There is naught but vers libre. 
Take thou the dose. 
Help! Oh, Colonel! Help! 
She got an immediate reply which was "Thank 
God, I am not a surgeon. Keep your spirits up and 
victory will be yours." She filed away for future 
reference this eminently practical suggestion which 
any janitor might have given her, and stopped send- 
ing appeals for help to her doctors. She commenced 
sending them socks! 
With her physicians in the army, Jane decided that 
it was the privilege of civilians to prescribe for them- 
selves. And she is getting better! Jane had alto- 
gether a motley array of doctors, over fifty in all, and 
she says that every living one-this does not include 
a few dead ones-at some time or other, told her a 
story with variations about an old woman who had 
89 "Chcero!" 
only two teeth but was thankful they hit. Even sev- 
eral strange doctors called in hurriedly in different 
emergencies told it. So general is its use that Jane 
thinks it is and ever has been offered as a special 
course in all the important medical schools. It is heard 
in the North, the South, the East, and the West, from 
young men as well as old, and, she says, that only once 
did she manage to tell it first. This seemed a mean 
advantage to take of an unsuspecting medic with his 
best bed-side manner on all ready for the big drive! 
Jane says she first heard the story when she was teeth- 
ing-that is before she cut her eye teeth, and she never 
wants to hear it again even if she should live to be 
as old as Methuselah. She is probably safe from 
attack now since she is her own physician and calls 
no one in consultation. 
During her period of relapsing, Jane tried every- 
thing from radium to Christian and un-Christian Sci- 
ence, and from Osteopathy to herbs, down one way 
and up the other, and sometimes all together. It was 
an exhilarating sport, but Jane abandoned it as profit- 
less and took up some war work which proved much 
more stimulating as well as more sensible. She is now 
urging every one she knows to get all the girls in the 
country organized into Patriotic Leagues. She says 
every invalid can help along this way, and the world 
will be a better one for the effort. It has knitting 
beaten to a frazzle. Factories can turn out socks, but 
no factory on earth can turn out Patriotic Leaguers 
three hundred thousand strong who have signed this 
90 Relapses 
pledge: "I pledge to express my patriotism by doing 
better than ever before whatever work I have to do; by 
rendering whatever special service I can at this time to 
my community and country; by living up to the highest 
standards of character and honor and by helping others 
to do the same." Jane says we must work for a million 
members. She is even enthusiastic about urging all 
invalids regardless of handicaps to sign. Patriotic 
Leagues must be promoted. The work is infinitely 
more interesting than pursuing a personal cure which 
in the end leads but to the grave. 
Jane is nothing if not patriotic. She is determined 
to help win the war. She registered in the woman's 
registration because she wished to be ready to answer 
her country's call, if it ever became necessary to 
mobilize the unfit. She says she could at least tell 
the government what not to do for rheumatism. 
Jane has passed through many new experiences 
since she commenced to relapse, and she carries along 
pleasant memories of doctors who took themselves 
seriously, thereby contributing to the gaiety of inva- 
lids, of friends who constantly told her of remedies 
that would cure her, and of faithful attendants who 
helped to lessen the miseries of disability. She has 
had all kinds of nurses, but she remembers particu- 
larly the golden-haired angel who watched over her 
for months, and who is now serving on the battle- 
fields "over there" where Jane would like to be. 
Jane wants an army commission for her and all the 
other brave "nursing sisters" who have enlisted for 
91 "Cheero!" 
service overseas. She says long illness must have 
infected her reasoning powers, because she is unable 
to understand why doctors have commissions, and 
nurses have not. 
Jane also recalls with pleasure memories of the 
faithful colored attendant to whom her wee nephew 
put the question "Why do you be colored?" Her 
reply, "God made me that way," gave him pause for 
a moment, but he rallied, and, placing himself uncon- 
ditionally among the higher critics, commented, "He's 
a funny man to do that." 
And she will always remember the lassie who was 
constantly prescribing for her, and who, when Jane 
offered a weary protest, replied: "I cannot help it; 
it is my nature. I have doctor's blood in my veins. 
Aly father, my grandfather and my uncle were veter- 
inariesI" 
Jane has another warm spot in her heart, and that 
is reserved for the dark-eyed girl who for more than 
a year has been her nurse, companion and friend. 
Jane is in fine fettle now. She is on a Win-the- 
War diet, and says she expects soon to be a hale and 
hearty invalid able to direct a hostess house at an 
army camp. She says relapses are not so bad-when 
you are through with them, and can look out to the 
future with hope. She has achieved peace without 
victory, but she knows the world will sometime be 
made unsafe for arthritis, if not it will be unsafe for 
doctors. In the meantime, even the humblest invalid 
92 Relapses 
can help in some way or other to make it safe for 
democracy. 
Prescriptions for Rheumatism 
I. 3 Search the country for a doctor who knows 
something about the disease-there isn't any 
such animal-and stick to him like a porous 
plaster. 
-Experience. 
2. Flee from nostrums as from the wrath of 
God-lame joints permitting. 
-Wisdom. 
3. Keep a stiff upper lip-stiff joints will take 
care of themselves. 
-Optimism. 
93