Dr. Galen's Little Black Bag: Stories. R.A. Comunale M.D. M.D.
had suffered routines like this throughout college, moving in single file past various stations of the biologic cross, given twenty seconds to identify ambiguous structures in sea creatures, plants, frogs, cats, and dogs.
Now the human counterpart challenged us: dried-out pieces of humanity with pins stuck through them and a question scribbled alongside that taxed our brains:
One: What the hell was that small dried-out macaroni-like tube that bore no resemblance to its real-life appearance?
Two: What did it do?
Three: What other action did it work against?
And so on.
Our first year was coming to an end. We had studied the normal aspects of the human body: its chemistries, its physiology, and its large, small and microscopic structures. We had attended physical-diagnosis sessions, seeing and talking to live patients. At first clumsy and uncertain, then with more and more self-assurance, we examined them in front of our professors.
Each time we attended, we carried our little black bags like talismans, self-consciously removing the tools of our trade, as we performed for grades.
And Harry? By the end of the term we had reduced him to skeletal bone and dried-out gristle. The lab assistants had removed his dissected body parts, and we were told they would be cremated in a non-denominational, religious ceremony.
We could not participate.
Once more I envy the present generation.
Hedley and Gable were more animated than usual that second-to-last day in the gross-anatomy lab.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a rare treat for you,” Gable trilled.
Uh-oh, she’s getting another…
Shut up, Sal! She’s one of the nicest people you could ever meet.
“Dr. Hedley has been experimenting with new and improved preservative fluids. These allow the body tissues to appear more normal, more … uh … lifelike in their flexibility.”
In a flourish more appropriate to a Cordon Bleu Parisian chef, Hedley pulled the cover off of a small, wheeled table, and we stared at disembodied arms, legs and heads that looked as though they had just fallen off someone walking by. He proudly picked up an arm-forearm-hand combination and pulled on the exposed tendons.
Those of you who are old enough to remember a TV show called “The Addams Family” may understand why some in our class began to laugh and clap, as Hedley the puppeteer manipulated that limb to move across the table. Then each of us experienced the frisson of shaking hands with it.
What about those heads?
If you are squeamish, skip the next paragraph.
Hedley took a flexible tube and inserted it into the stump of the trachea—the windpipe. He held the mouth of the disembodied head open and blew into the plastic pipe. An eerie “ahhhhhhh” resulted, as Hedley’s breath activated the vocal cords of a dead man.
Congrats, kid. You didn’t even flinch.
Thanks, Sal.
Time for me to go, Berto. You’re gonna do just fine now.
Don’t you want to see me make a fool of myself?
Nah, I know you won’t. ’Sides, Corrado and I … we’re gonna have a gab fest with Harry and Shirley.
Good-bye, Sal.
Nope, it’s arrivederci or ciao. See ya in … oops—not supposed ta tell.
Sal … Sal?
On the last lab day, Hedley and Gable congratulated us all for making it through the course. Gable had lost a considerable amount of weight over the year, and Hedley stood more and more at her side to steady her.
Gable, looking very tired, sat at her desk and smiled, as we all came forward to shake her hand and Hedley’s. Then she gave her valedictory.
“You are my last class, ladies and gentlemen. I am, as the more astute of you already know, dying of a particular form of cancer. I want to let you know that I am donating my body upon death to this very lab. I know that John,” she turned toward Hedley, “I know John has also made arrangements for himself.
“God bless you all.”
Our first year was over … right?
Guess again.
Now we faced the dreaded week of comprehensives.
Our little black bags sat on the shelves in our dorm rooms. We sweated in Richmond’s oppressive heat and humidity, as we pored over all of the notes we had taken during the past year.
Pass them and move on to second year; flunk and you were either out or—the greater ignominy—forced to repeat year one.
You know the sensation from hearing finger nails scraping a blackboard? (Do they still use blackboards?) By day seven of the comps we would have torn the head off a chicken if it looked at us sideways.
“You’re breathing too loudly, City Boy.”
“Do you know how annoying your nasal whistle is, Country Boy?”
It actually helped. After we wrestled each other to the floor, we sat there laughing. Then we hit the books again.
That final day of comps, we turned in our last exam booklets and headed out.
Dave was going to spend two week at his family’s farm before returning to his summer job at the school. I had a job lined up as well. It would be two whole weeks of doing nothing, hearing nothing.
“Wanna come home with me, City Boy?”
We left together.
On schedule two weeks later we were back in the anatomy building. Dave and I worked as gofers for several graduate students, doing the scut work and bone articulations of skeletons for teaching assistants.
“Galen, Nash, would you guys wheel this over to the ENT lab in West Hospital?”
Charlie Nestor, our boss, was winding up his Ph.D. in human anatomy. His research developed the new preservative fluids for lab specimens. He was pointing at a medium-sized, wheeled table with large, dark-plastic jars on each of its three shelves. It was surprisingly heavy and needed both of us to maneuver it through the streets. We looked like demented hot dog vendors, dressed in foul-smelling, green lab smocks.
Two blocks and two elevator rides later we reached the lab where the residents specializing in head-and-neck surgery honed their skills on cadaver specimens. The lab master signed our slips and helped us park the table along the wall.
As we headed out, we heard him laugh.
“Hey, guys, who’s the joker who played makeup artist?”
We turned.
He had opened one of the jars and taken out its contents. It was a human head—hair combed and tied in a ribbon, wearing lipstick and facial makeup.
Gertrude Gable really did look natural.
Mother Nature Ain’t Nice
“Holy shit!”
Andy Kagill clutched his groin protectively, while the rest of us guys experienced that uniquely male sensation that occurs when we sit in cold water.
The gals looked on with Mona Lisa smiles.
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this poor woman definitely had a vaginal overbite.”
Second year medical school had begun on a beautifully balmy August day—definitely not weather conducive to studying. But this was pathology year, the year of the odd, the unusual, and the unexpected. Our previous year had been spent learning the normal, or what was considered normal. Now we got to see in full detail the tricks that Mother Nature could play on her children.