The Anatomy of Deception - Lawrence Goldstone [75]
As we drew closer, I realized that the main building was not a single structure, but rather a number of separate facilities placed in proximity to one another. I asked why the hospital had been constructed in compartments.
“We did that intentionally,” said Gilman. His voice was high-pitched and had a break that was incongruous in such a legendary scholar. He’d been enticed ten years before to leave his post as president of the University of California, and had personally overseen the hospital’s design and construction.
“Since, as we know, most contamination and contagion are airborne, John Shaw Billings, who was our guiding spirit, designed the hospital not only to separate the administrative areas from the wards, but also to segregate other functional sections … laundry, dispensary, commissary … to minimize transmission. All the buildings, or ‘pavilions’ as we call them, are extremely well ventilated so that noxious air does not settle. It was a good deal more costly to design the hospital in this fashion, but the trustees were quite serious in their intention to create the finest medical facility in the world.”
The first item on the agenda was a luncheon to welcome us to the hospital and introduce us to our fellow doctors and the professors at the university. The interior of the new building glistened. Double doors opened onto a long, well-appointed, wood-paneled room, with large windows facing west. There were at least fifty others already present and, as we walked through the doorway, they began to applaud. The Professor stopped short and I thought he might actually blush.
Welch, who had been scrupulous in treating me with the same respect as he showed the Professor, led us both into the hall, and he and Gilman began to make introductions. We moved from one small knot to another, and the names were soon swimming in my head. Although the professors at the university tended to be in their fifties and sixties, most of the medical staff was young, the oldest being in their early forties.
As we reached the far end of the dining hall, we came upon a man standing alone. He was not tall, but had a thick chest and gave the impression of great strength. He was serious-looking, like a stern schoolmaster, but impeccably dressed in a dark suit with a brilliantly white collar and dark blue silk tie. He appeared to be older than the Professor or Welch, and was light-haired and balding, with a carefully trimmed, turned-up mustache and a beard cut close to his cheeks. Behind his pince-nez, his eyes were an odd blue-green and arresting, as if they had been lit from the rear.
Even had his demeanor not been so haunting, there was little danger that my memory of this man would be lost among the others. I had seen him before—not at a medical facility, but at The Fatted Calf, where he had been taken away by a short, mustached man in a bowler hat.
The Professor extended his hand, smiling. “Doctor,” he said, “I am so pleased to see you again.”
The other nodded and accepted the Professor’s hand, but there was little warmth in his demeanor. “And I you, Doctor,” he replied evenly.
“Ephraim Carroll,” the Professor said, “I would like you to meet the finest surgeon in America, Dr. William Stewart Halsted.”
I took Halsted’s hand. His fingers were short but his grip was firm and confident, his stub of a thumb pressing into the flesh of my hand. His eyes unflinchingly held mine. I could read nothing from his gaze and hoped that he read nothing from mine.
“It is an honor, Dr. Halsted,” I said, after it was clear that he would not speak first. “Dr. Osler speaks of you in exalted terms.”
Halsted nodded perfunctorily, but otherwise did not change expression. The effect was unnerving. I could not imagine that he recognized me from The Fatted Calf—I had been across the room. Might he have seen me somewhere else, perhaps with Turk earlier that evening, or outside Mrs. Fasanti’s when I had come upon my dying colleague? I fervently hoped he had not. I was violating strict scientific method to think so, but the man before