The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [143]
I kept Abigail’s portrait of me, not as a reminder of the man I wished to be, but rather of the sins of pride and arrogance that I wished never to repeat. I dedicated my life to atoning for my role in the death of George Farnshaw although, for quite a while, despite my wife’s assurances, I felt that I never would. Then, ten years ago, at Christmas dinner, I looked around at my family, and walked into the study to read a testimonial from the grateful citizens of Seattle that I had mounted on the wall. I considered the sum of my life, went to the attic, fetched the portrait, and threw it into the fire.
My life would have been very different, I know, had I accepted the Professor’s offer and accompanied him to Johns Hopkins. I would, as Dr. Osler predicted, have achieved wealth and fame; more importantly, I would have undoubtedly contributed, as he did, to the saving of thousands of lives. But among the many decisions of my life I might wish to rescind, that is one that I have never regretted. For in turning my back on the many, I believe that I saved myself.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
TO ADDRESS THE MOST IMPORTANT point first: The Anatomy of Deception is a work of fiction. There is not a scintilla of historical evidence to suggest that William Halsted ever committed murder. Nor is there any indication that he ever performed an abortion, although, in the thousands upon thousands of surgeries he did perform, many of them private, it is not impossible that he terminated a pregnancy or two. As to his continued drug addiction, however, and thus his susceptibility to blackmail, extremely persuasive evidence does exist, and it emanated from the unlikeliest of sources.
For the last thirty years of Dr. Halsted’s life, and for almost half a century after his death in 1922, it was assumed by the public, his students, virtually all of his colleagues, and certainly his patients that he overcame his drug dependency in the 1880s by sheer force of will. The three extant Halsted biographies, none of them scholarly (the last of which, provocatively titled Cocaine, Cancer, and Courage, was published in 1960), were written by friends, colleagues, or offspring of colleagues. Each extols the man for the indomitable will required to perform such a feat of self-control.
Then, in 1969, a manuscript Dr. Osler had written but instructed be kept sealed until fifty years after his death was finally opened. In this account, called The Inner History of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Osler revealed that Dr. Halsted had remained a drug addict. The great surgeon continued to inject morphine—regularly and in large doses—during Osler’s entire career in Baltimore. (Osler left for Great Britain in 1905, but one can reasonably assume that after two decades of addiction, Halsted did not choose to go through withdrawal in his fifties.) Thus the many operations that Dr. Halsted performed—for which he indeed was sometimes paid more than $10,000—were completed while under the influence of opiates. According to the manuscript, only Osler himself knew of Halsted’s ongoing drug use, although Michael Bliss, an Osler biographer, stated Welch possibly knew as well.
The failure to speak out about Halsted was not the only incident in which Dr. Osler turned a blind eye to the malfeasance of a fellow physician. He also remained silent after an incident in Montréal in which a patient died as a result of a colleague’s obvious blunder. Dr. Osler reassured the other doctor that no one would remember the incident in six months.
The disclosure that, whether for altruistic motives or not, Dr. Osler would keep such secrets gave me the idea for this novel. From my research, I have no doubt that William Osler personally epitomized the very peak of medical ethics and was a man of exceptionally high moral fiber. Had he paid a price, I wondered, for ignoring the immoral acts of others in pursuit of the advancement of medicine and the betterment of mankind? Would he have reported Dr. Halsted to the police if Halsted had committed a crime under the influence of drugs?