United States or Tunisia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If death comes, she fears "that the haggard doctor will dissect my naked corpse," and pictures herself dying on the operating-table like a stray dog and her well-made body "disgraced by the lustful kiss of the too eager blade" as, "with sinister smile untiring, they tear my bowels out and still gloat over my sold corpse, go on to bare my bones, and veins at will, wrench out my heart," probe vainly for the secrets of hunger and the mystery of pain, until from her "dead breast gurgles a gasp of malediction."
Perhaps after the war is ended, when it is too late, some one may invent a motor ambulance on easy springs that will not multiply unnecessarily the pain of torn flesh and the grating edges of bones. Now comes the night in the casualty clearing-station at Heilly. Straight on to another operating-table, but one in a sea of many ten operations going on at once.
But what Sharlee liked best about this unglassed and unscienced Mr. Queed was his entire absence of any self-consciousness in regard to her. When he told her that Easter Monday night that he cheerfully took his turn on the psychological operating-table, anæsthetics barred, and no mercy asked or given, it appeared that he, alone among men, really meant it.
The two long silver pipes were left protruding. Now, for the first time, Billie saw where they led to. On a stand alongisde the operating-table stood an extremely small, flat box, with its lid open. The pipes ended there. And as the surgeon inspected the outfit Billie saw that it comprised, in effect, a pair of diminutive air-pumps.
Although he must have been suffering terrible agony, he lay there for three hours without a murmur or a complaint, and, so far as I could see, without change of countenance, until his turn came and he was lifted upon the operating-table. At sunset the five surgeons had operated upon and dressed the wounds of one hundred and fifty-four men.
The meal of milkless tea, black bread, and cheese, was spread on a sterilized towel on the operating-table, illuminated by two candles stuck in bottles. Princess sat in the only chair, and the rest of us eased our weary feet by sitting on the edge of the dressing-boxes. Two dead soldiers lay at our feet it was not safe just at that moment to take them out and bury them.
This is never done in their beds, as the English plan is, but each man is carried in turn to the "salle des pansements," and is laid on an operating-table and has his fresh dressings put on, and is then carried back to bed again. It is a good plan, I think. The hospital keeps me busy all the morning.
“The barn first,” said the Doctor; “if I remember rightly, there is a large work-bench there. It will make a fine operating-table. And, Joyce, warm water, towels, and bandages.”
"After the last time I kept seeing those poor things. . . . I don't mind once we start I don't mind the operating-table. It's when they come in . . . like dumb things trying to smile, with their mouths all screwed up and tight." She caught her breath half hysterically. Margaret put down her cup quickly and sat down by the girl's side. "Betty! Don't talk like that.
To illustrate his care he pointed out to us a cabinet directly back of the operating-table, lined with thick sheets of lead. From this cabinet he conducted most of his treatments as far as possible.
Word Of The Day