Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [43]
Doctor Vespa says opium is the most effective remedy in such cases. Giving him just enough to doze off won’t do, I’m afraid. He needs a ball of opium every four hours for it to work. Make sure his swollen parts are kept moist and soft with the proper creams. And remember Doctor Vespa also advises he should be taking a few spoonfuls of China salt. My dearest sister, I know how much you love [our father] and how much you love me, and therefore I beg you to follow these instructions carefully.19
It broke her heart not to be with her father.
Hug Papa for me very, very tightly, and tell him not to worry because otherwise I shall not cease to worry myself. Above all, protect him from ordinary balsams that will only cause more inflammation and prevent other pernicious steps by all those so-called professors who have already been the cause of so many unhappy errors.
Vespa was one of the best-known doctors in Europe and Lucia, quite understandably, fell very much under his spell. Less so Paolina, who often stood her ground in her long-distance disputes with him. The discussion could turn quite heated, with Lucia stepping in to find some middle ground, especially when it touched issues related to childbirth—a field about which Paolina, already a mother, felt women knew more than men ever would, even if they were eminent doctors. Which was the best way to bring a child to life? Doctor Vespa wanted Lucia to deliver lying down in bed “since he strongly feels that it is the safer and more comfortable position.” Paolina argued that it was much more natural to deliver “in the chair,” that is sitting in a specially designed armchair with a large hole in the seat, and pushing downwards. This way the weight of gravity did much of the work, and the mother had only to help things along. It was, she argued, the more “natural” way to give birth. Vespa replied, through Lucia, that if Paolina wanted nature to do its work properly, it made “more sense to let the baby do most of the effort to come out, instead of making the mother exert herself on the chair, forcing a process that nature might not want to precipitate.” Paolina was not swayed, so Vespa took on a more scientific tone to make his point more forcefully. “Child delivery occurs as a result of the contractions of the uterus,” he expounded with impatience. If the mother is sitting, she will accelerate the delivery “and the weight of the baby will end up tearing at the uterus.” Bottom line: he never, ever, gave the go-ahead to “accelerated deliveries” such as the one Paolina was defending. Paolina insisted that delivering “in the chair” might be increasingly frowned upon in the medical community, but it suited her because it reduced the heavy discharges that had been such a problem the first time around. Not so, interjected Lucia, who valued Paolina’s experience but felt she was not in a position to contradict Doctor Vespa. “What do you think was the cause of so much discharge in your case? Precisely the fact that you gave birth in the chair,” she told her sister. “It seems obvious to me that all the effort one has to make in that position is likely to produce more consequences than if one is lying horizontally, on a bed.”20
When the doctor was away attending to his imperial duties an eerie silence filled the