Page:Sexology.djvu/131

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"We shall never forget how one midnight that we had been summoned, he followed us back to our office to learn the result of a microscopical investigation, which, we had candidly informed him, was to settle the question of life or death for his darling, nor his inexpressible anguish when our worst fears were confirmed. From that moment for three entire months he abandoned business — every thing, including sleep and rest, to the care of his sick wife. He never left her side. "We never once failed to find him at his post, throughout the most trying and apparently hopeless case we had ever witnessed. At last we all sup- posed the fatal moment had arrived — a still-born baby waited in its little coffin to be buried with its mother, who lay unconscious, scarcely the faintest respiration indicating that the spirit still lingered. She died, apparently, and •we wondered next day, as we drove to the door — trying to con some soothing word to speak to that truly disconsolate mourner — why the usual crape had been omitted.^^ We solemnly declare that if the still-born baby had sat erect in its coffin, we could hardly have been more astonished than by the salutation which feebly greeted us, "Good morning, doctor V from the lips of the woman we had believed, of course, to be dead !

"Scarcely less marvelous was the recovery which fol- lowed. An enormous slough left exposed the tendons, liga- ments, vessels, and bones, of the entire lower third of the back — while the legs were so "doubled" beneath her that for almost a year she propelled herself about her chamber by resting the palms of her hands upon the floor. With indomitable patience and perseverence the husband addressed himself to the task of removing these last horrors. Under our direction, he "dressed" and finally healed the frightful hiatus in the back, and then with gentle force and