St. Bernard's: The Romance of a Medical Student

Mr. Mole proved a failure; his great monograph was all the original work he ever did, and he lived a poor and obscure man. He never married Janet, after all, so that her Egyptian gentleman misled her no less than the little physiologist. Dr. Sones still occupies his old quarters, and now and then gets a thrill of ecstatic delight as he makes some new discovery in his favourite study; and though he does not acquire a fortune, he gets what he values more – a little fame from time to time in the chemical journals of Europe. His good sister still befriends his poor clients; and even his Board of Guardians acknowledges that, in the medical officer of the south ward of their parish and his estimable sister, they have full value for the salary they pay their doctor. This has actually been admitted at the Board, and nobody opposed it – a fact going far to prove that the officer must either be a very good or an exceedingly bad one.

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When Mildred returned to England, she found amongst her correspondence a prospectus of the new hospital and nursing home, with a note from Sister Agnes, asking her to visit the little colony and hospital on her return. Mildred seemed to see in all this the hand of Providence pointing her future course. Was it not strange that her meeting with Elsworth, and the history of his work, should have aroused her interest in, and awakened a desire to promote a similar scheme on a large scale, and immediately on her return to find that the same idea had occurred to her good friend, Sister Agnes? The prospectus declared that the new hospital scheme had proved perfectly feasible, all that was wanting was the necessary money to develop and extend it. For this object a drawing-room meeting was to be held in Kensington Gore in a few days, and Sister Agnes earnestly besought her presence. Mildred was not long in finding her way down to the East End, and assuring her friends at Nightingale Home of her interest in the good work they had so well begun. She paid such frequent visits that at last Aunt Janet jokingly remarked that she fully expected soon to see her don the habit of a sisterhood, unless perchance anybody should come along to forbid the sacrifice.

As she said this, she held up a letter which she had received that morning from Elsworth, announcing his intention to return at once to England, inasmuch as the news had reached him from his men of business, that his father, Major Elsworth, was dead, he having been seized with a fit of apoplexy while engaged at a meeting of the Theosophical Society of Benares.

When Elsworth received the news of his father’s death, he felt that he could no longer remain in Spain. Apart from the necessity of visiting England on business, he yearned to be nearer his newly found friends. Poor fellow, he felt the need of “congenial sympathy” – at least, so he said to himself. The death of his father and the thoughts of Mildred (and Aunt Janet) combined to make him think that gipsies and cholera patients did not completely fill the void in his heart. Aunt Janet had corresponded with him, and spoke in such terms of Mildred that he would have been foolish not to take encouragement from her tone and follow up his advantage. Aunt Janet was evidently developing into a match-maker. She was, in fact, so impressed with Elsworth that, highly as she valued Mildred, she did not consider her a whit too good for such a man. A girl’s women-folk usually think no man is good enough to marry her. Very likely they are right; still, there are some Elsworths yet in the world.

Six months after Mildred’s visit to Granada, Elsworth, the exile, returned to London. His first visit was to St. Bernard’s. Having entered as a perpetual student, he had the right to all the advantages of the hospital for life. He saw the warden and several of the staff, explained the reasons of his absence, and requested that his name might at once be put down for the appointments he had the right to hold. As it happened, there was a vacant house-physicianship just then at his service, and, as he was very popular at the place, he went into residence almost at once.

It was not long before he looked up Aunt Janet and Mildred. That was the arrangement on his surface mind – his deeper soul said “Mildred and Aunt Janet,” but he did not permit this to be audible to his own ears. He feared she was too high for him; her wealth had placed a barrier between her and his striving. Still, he could call upon Aunt Janet, and that would be something towards keeping up the acquaintance with Mildred.

As soon as it became known that Elsworth had turned up again, he had visits from many old friends. Alas! some of his former acquaintances were dead; others had gone hopelessly to the dogs. Many were in good practice – some in London, others in the country. A few had spent the interval in going backwards and forward as surgeons in ships trading to the Antipodes: but there were at least a dozen fellows who, having failed to pass any of their examinations, were still hanging about the hospital, which was heartily ashamed of them, while they divided their time impartially between the dissecting-room and the neighbouring taverns. Of course, it was not to many of these Elsworth told the story of his going, but it soon oozed out. Was he chaffed? Not the least. The lowest mind, the most besotted intellect admires and respects the genuine conversion of a sinner, even as the angels rejoice at the fact. Not that Elsworth would now, in the strength he had imbibed from his long communion with God, have cared in the least for the jeers of these men. He was quite strong enough now to

“Take temptation by the head and hair.”

He was very popular with all the staff, but still more with the patients and the nurses; not quite so popular with the students. They might tax his energies to the utmost; he never tired of helping them to learn all they could learn honestly and fairly, but with him it was patient first and pupils next; no tricks were played upon the occupants of any beds in his wards. He had been just two months in his post as resident physician, when the secretary of the hospital sent for him to his office, to ask him if he would like to take a rather valuable appointment as resident surgeon to the Nightingale Hospital. He had been told by Miss Mildred Lee that he was just the man they wanted for their new charity.

The secretary was compelled to give the invitation himself, as the staff would not even recognise the place. When the doctors heard of the new hospital, they poured their scorn and contempt upon it. “The newest fad of the faddists;” “the humanitarian craze of the shrieking sisterhood;” “the college of all the antis,” and the like complimentary epithets were bestowed upon it.

Of course none of them would give it the least of their countenance or support, and all would have dealt hardly with any friends who helped it.

Elsworth thought he would like this position above all things, and lost no time in calling upon Mildred for further particulars. He learned from Aunt Janet that her niece had absolutely made over the great bulk of her fortune to the trustees of the new buildings, and had besides interested some wealthy friends who rendered valuable assistance; and that, so convinced were they that he was the man for the post of medical superintendent, that they begged him to accept it, with the stipend of £500 a year. Elsworth did not hesitate, but accepting the offer at once, set to work to elaborate a scheme for the efficient conduct of an institution so consonant with his ideal of what a true hospital should be.

At first it was not proposed to establish a Medical School, as it would involve too great an expenditure for their present means. But such an institution would ultimately be included in the work proposed, as they considered that it was perfectly possible efficiently to educate men for the medical profession, if they were of worthy material, without entailing suffering, shame, or loss on man, woman, or child.

Of course Aunt Janet knew perfectly well that Mildred and Elsworth loved each other, though neither had given her any real cause for speaking on the subject. The great difficulty was the heiress’ wealth; to a man of Elsworth’s principle this would ever prove a barrier to any avowal of his passion. He would have hidden his love to his life’s end, sooner than be suspected of designs upon her fortune. By the death of his father, he was in a position to maintain a wife in a sufficient luxury, for the Major had left him a very handsome provision, but this was far below what he considered enough for Mildred. When, however, her niece had finally disburdened herself of the greater portion of her golden encumbrance, Aunt Janet thought that as an equilibrium was more nearly approached, he might be encouraged a little; and she did not hesitate to let him know he might avow himself with some prospect of success.

CHAPTER XLIV.

AN INFANT RIVER

Pass on, young stream, the world has need of thee;Far hence a mighty river on its breastBears the deep-laden vessels to the sea;Far hence wide waters feed the vines and corn.Pass on, small stream, to so great purpose born,On to the distant toil, the distant rest.– Augusta Webster.

Five years after Elsworth’s marriage a great meeting of nobility and others interested in hospital and charitable work in the metropolis, met at a ducal residence in Kensington to found a society for the purpose of establishing in every quarter of London inhabited by working people, a small hospital and nursing institute on the plan of the Nightingale institution. This was proposed to be combined with a similar scheme of civilizing work to that conducted by the Home of the same name.

It was felt and cordially expressed that so admirable were the results of the work done by this institution, that society owed it to the poorer districts of the metropolis at once to do this much towards remedying the terrible and growing evils caused by the withdrawal of the gentry from the working neighbourhoods of London; and that the growing discontent of the people could best be allayed by such a scheme carried out in its integrity.

One of the speakers said that each place would involve an expenditure of not more than twelve hundred pounds a year, which sum he believed was about the cost of keeping the rhinoceros at the Zoological Gardens. It was not disputed that there were hundreds of ladies leading perfectly idle and useless lives in the West End who would gladly devote themselves to such a work if it were made practicable; and it seemed to the speakers that no missionary work could have such a claim on Christian people as this. The result of the meeting was that in a few days large sums of money were placed at the disposal of the committee, and some fifty ladies of wealth and position offered themselves for personal service in its cause.

Elsworth is now engaged in a scheme for a General Hospital of 200 beds, with a Medical School attached to it; the latter being for the purpose of educating on humane principles such young men as may desire to devote themselves to the healing art on the lines laid down by the Founder of that faith from which has sprung all the charities of modern Christendom.

It is thought that should this plan meet with the success which has attended other hospitals founded on similar principles, it will be ultimately possible to re-direct our richly endowed charities to the purposes intended by their founders and supporters. For many years it was loudly maintained by the doctors that patients could not recover from many illnesses without the liberal use of alcoholic stimulants. The success of the Temperance Hospital has upset that “idol of the schools.” The physiological mania, the drug mania, and the operative furor will all in time pass away like the craze for bleeding, and it will ultimately be found that it is perfectly possible to cure the sick and save the limbs of the injured by merciful, honourable, and rational means. But then it will want merciful, honourable, and rational Christian gentlemen to do all this. Nous verrons.

L’Envoi.

When the world has been dowered with a great truth, the boon comes usually as a germ. The world always looks for its Messiah as a crowned King, and neglects its infant Jesus in the manger. No great truth flashes on the world all at once; great forces work ever most silently. Even the Christ of God so little affected the contemporary history of His period that scarce any record is found of His work in the secular literature of the time.

The seeds of truth, placed in favourable conditions, can no more help growing than the sun can help shining; both fulfil the laws which are behind them; and it is a source of infinite solace to the noble men and women who are striving to benefit the world by their words and works that no great idea founded on the truth of God can either perish or fail of its mission. The work of Mildred and Harrowby Elsworth must ultimately succeed; its principles must in time dominate the conduct of the great medical charities of our land. When the air and light of day are let in upon the foul accumulations of scientific error which have lately been infecting their atmosphere, their antiseptic influence will kill the bacteria of a “science falsely so called.”

THE END

1

“The Doctrine of Descent.” Oscar Schmidt.

2

Browning: “Ring and Book,” vol. iv. p. 60.

3

Virchow’s Archiv., xli. 101.

4

Dublin Journal, xlvii. 325.

5

Bull. Therap., lxxiii. 253. 290.