The Anatomist - Bill Hayes [49]
One day in early March, he stops by the London office of the General Screw Steamship Company. Though his name has apparently been “on the list” for an interview since the previous October, “appointments are slow,” he is told. But this does not sit well with an eager young man. After weeks of forced patience, Carter writes a letter to the company’s chief officer, asserting his earnest “desire to enter service.” He posts the letter on the nineteenth of March, the very same day, coincidentally, that an ad he had purchased appears in the distinguished medical journal The Lancet.
Medical Artist.—A young gentleman,
M.R.C.S., and acquainted with Pathology, the Microscope, &c., is desirous of assisting gentlemen engaged in scientific research by making Drawings. Specimens will be furnished on address to H.V.C., No. 85, Upper Ebury-street, Pimlico.
This was his calling card, presented on the newsprint equivalent of a silver platter, to the entire medical community of London. He had fussed over each word, checked the proof for typos, and when the ad came out, pasted a neatly clipped copy into that day’s diary entry. For him, the nineteenth was a day to imagine, and savor, all the fantastic possibilities ahead—the flood of responses to his ad, the encouraging reply from the steamship company, the subsequent interview and job offer, his first journey out to India, and on and on. The future looked bright. With the turn of a page, however, come the gray clouds. The steamship company informs Carter that his “age and inexperience” make him an unsuitable candidate for a ship’s surgency. Adding to his disappointment, it soon becomes clear that The Lancet ad fails to generate any new work. But why? Was the advert too genteel?
Carter doesn’t give up but rather changes focus. He now sets his sights squarely on a Studentship in Human and Comparative Anatomy offered by the Royal College of Surgeons. This was essentially a full-time internship of two years’ duration and was awarded every June to the winner of a highly competitive qualifying exam. This meant he had just over two months to prepare.
Already licensed to practice surgery, he was not lacking in impressive academic honors and credentials. In fact, he had returned from Paris with six new “certificates” attesting to the specialized work he had done in hospitals there. And the studentship would not give him the kind of on-the-job experience the General Screw Company thought he was lacking. One could even argue that the position would be a step backward for him. Indeed, while casting this last line of thought, I believe I found the likeliest explanation. The previous June, just a few weeks after earning his M.R.C.S., Carter had come in second in the studentship exam—so close!—but second place got you nothing, not even a certificate. This time around, he would redeem himself and claim the crown.
And June 14 was the day. “I was called in, as [the] successful candidate for [the] Studentship of Anatomy to [the] College!” he tells his diary, skipping his articles in his excitement.
One of the very next to hear the news was Henry Gray, whom Carter visited at work. Not only pleased for his friend, Gray offered further encouragement, suggesting that he now go for the Royal College of Surgeons’ Triennial Prize. Gray himself had won this award four years earlier for his study of the nerves of the human eye. You’ll have access to the lab and the library, so why not do some independent research?
“Might—shall see,” Carter notes, and his reluctance is understandable. This would be a major undertaking,