THE PERFECT CURIOSITY

INTRODUCTION, by Vella Munn

The Perfect Curiosity? A strange title for a short story that borders on horror for a man better known for his science fiction and mysteries.

Perhaps this is the explanation for why Homer wrote about open heart surgery from the patient’s point of view—a patient who is also the surgeon.

Not long after Homer’s middle child was born in late 1918, appendicitis put him in the hospital for two weeks. As far as anyone in the family knows, that was his only surgery. In a letter written to his father, Homer admitted his recovery was taking longer than he expected and he was tired of feeling sick.

The surgeon/patient in this short story uses ice to control pain plus iodine as a hedge against infection. One trusts Homer was given more effective pain medication. Prior to the early 1900s, physicians relied on herbal anesthetics. The results were inconsistent, sometimes resulting in death. Cocaine was the first local and came with its own set of possible complications, including addiction. By 1943, lidocaine was in use. Assumptions are Homer was given eucaine, amylocaine, or procaine. Fortunately, ether had been used in surgery since the 1840s and chloroform shortly after.

Both Homer and his wife had several teeth removed. One might think they dreaded the surgery but in 1923, Homer wrote his wife:

“Am going to the dentist tomorrow and have the remaining four side teeth yanked. One of them has been raising Ned and keeping me from writing. Can’t let it make a nervous wreck of me, like the others did. When those four are out I will have nothing but live teeth in my face, only ten of them, but alive—not ulcerated. Don’t worry, this session will be an easy one because Marckres will give me the ‘deep injection’, paralyzing the whole jaw. And I’m in entirely different condition for the ordeal this time. In forty-eight hours I’ll be like a new man.”

Homer holds his first born Max who was also fascinated by space and the planets.

THE PERFECT CURIOSITY

Another man would have hurled the book from him with a curse of impatience; but Doctor Childers carefully returned the volume to its shelf and calmly walked over to the window, his face as unperturbed as though he had not met with the greatest disappointment of his life.

The book had told him nothing. It was Gale and Pyne’s “Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicene,” a standard resume of the strange and exceptional cases in the world’s medical practice, a veritable cyclopedia of all the unique but authentic teratogenic feats of Nature. Never before had Childers failed to find within its covers, some light on such aberrations as came under his professional notice. For once, the surgeon found himself facing a blank wall; he was unable to make any headway against the mystery. And that mystery surrounded the most important ease in his entire career.

The case was his own.

It was Mildred Burke who had told him of his condition. Not in so many words, however; her behavior, and his own lack of reaction to that behavior, had forced him to infer the truth.

There was something wrong with his heart.

Mildred had made it perfectly plain that she was fond of him. Without the slightest vanity Childers could assume that, had he but responded to what she said and did, he could have changed that fondness into the most vivid of emotions. There were little touches of affection in the modulations of her voice, little tendernesses in the way she glanced up at him, which could have but one explanation.

But it had all left him cold. Not once had he thrilled to her voice or glance or touch. And Mildred was beautiful; not only was her face perfect of feature and complexion, but her body was such as artists bow down to worship. Both face and figure were warm, radiant, alive. For most men—any other man—Mildred would have held an irresistible fascination. For Doctor Childers, she held nothing but a cool, scientific interest in the physiological perfection of her.

It was so with all women. None aroused the slightest passion in him. Thousands he had met both professionally and socially; not one had aroused more than that all-pervading scientific curiosity.

He could remember, however, when it had been otherwise. Long ago, when he was a boy. With a boy’s adherence to the scheme of evolution, which forced the male to polygamy in prehistoric times, Childers had loved again and again when adolescence was upon him. Never had these loves got beyond the stage of distant adoration, but they had been innumerable.

Then had come school. College. More college, and the two trips to Europe. Along with it all, his ambition and determination to become the greatest surgeon in the world.

Now he was barely forty. And already his ambition was fulfilled. Even the greatest masters of the profession on the continent admitted that Childers was greater.

He could look back and see just how he had done it. From the moment the ambition seized him, he had observed the most rigid self-discipline. Mentally and physically he had bound himself in iron of his own forging. None but thoughts bearing upon his goal had he permitted himself; none but habits that could perfect his surgical skill had he allowed his body. Abstemiousness he had made a god, so that his mind might be filled only with the kind of knowledge that his aspiration demanded, and his muscles and nerves strong and rock steady for the use of such a mind.

Into such a scheme of things, women could not fit. He had ruled them out, together every habit that might become deleterious. In diet and hygiene Childers had achieved absolute, monk-like control. To master a science, he had first mastered himself.

It was when he was thirty that he first suspected that he had worked a metamorphosis in himself. It had come to him when he was operating on a woman’s cranium. A problem of infinitesimal delicacy, less than a hundredth of an inch lay between his scalpel and the patient’s death. Two or three exceedingly fine touches of the blade and the thing would be a success. If only his hand were steady enough! Then it was that Childers found he could control the beating of his heart.

For a few seconds he could abate the cardiac action completely. Rather, he could reduce its action to an imperceptible flutter; and he could hold it that way long enough to permit his fingers, unshaken by blood pressure, to make the final touch that finished the operation.

Along with this achievement had come a curious change in the attitude of his fellow-men. Like most practitioners he had entered the profession from a love for humanity and a desire to benefit it. Before this change came over him, he had always been included in the fellowship of these sympathetic, big-hearted men and women. But now he found that he was out of it.

He could not think that it was premeditated. Yet one and all avoided him. They spoke to him as little as possible; always very respectfully, as befitted the man’s greatness; but never cordially. They did not include him in such activities as called for geniality; all they seemed to want of him, now, was the force of his intellect in mooted questions. As he looked back on it, he saw that this attitude had obtained for a long time before he became aware of it; so wrapped up had he been in his work.

At that time he had not achieved his ambition. He had stifled his discomfort at the discovery, and doggedly had proceeded with his exacting studies and practice. He told himself that it was the price which genius must pay.

He could recall a stray remark or so. “Utterly without feeling,” one jealous specialist had branded him. There was something that he had overheard one nurse say to another, directly after the completion of a particularly disagreeable operation which had had to be performed without general anesthesia, due to the patient’s weak heart. Childers had long ago schooled himself to ignore suffering; how else could he become the world’s foremost surgeon? Pain and misery were nothing to him, if he but finished the work without a slip.

The nurse had said:

“What a wonderful man! But—his heart must be made of stone.”

Childers remembered it because of the whimsical notion that a man’s heart could petrify. Impersonality itself, he had not thought to apply the thing to the surgeon and man, Benjamin Childers, until this moment. It made him smile, very slightly. Ridiculous idea.

But his problem remained. What was there about him that made him so different from other men? Was it his heart? If so, in what way was his heart unlike all others?

Logically his mind went over the three questions. Yes, truly he was different from other men. Somehow or other he had been spared even a single failure; never had he lost a patient, never had he failed in the most intricate tests that his knowledge and skill had been put to. He had yet to be baffled—until now.

Perhaps it was not his heart. Any psychologist, he knew, would have suspected some odd quirk in the brain. But Childers had at one time submitted to an exhaustive mental test, from which he had emerged with a record of a hundred percent. And he knew that his intellectual equipment was merely a little more complete, his mental processes just a trifle more accurate and dependable, than any of his less celebrated colleagues. The difference was solely in degree, not in nature.

Having forced himself to conclude that the seat of his strangeness lay in his heart, Childers could get no further. The book which he had replaced on its shelf told him a few things but failed to touch bottom. There was one mythical case of a Roman soldier who had no heart at all. Again, there were many recorded instances of persons with incomplete cardiac equipment; sometimes only half a heart had been found. But Childers had merely to lay a hand on his ribs, to know that his own heart was functioning perfectly. As to whether it were not entire—but that was too utterly unlikely.

Again his memory called up a fact. Just a couple of years before, he had learned that a certain practitioner in a Pennsylvania town had operated on himself for appendicitis. With his head elevated by assistants, and himself wielding the instruments, this surgeon had abstracted the affected part, ligated and excised it, afterwards suturing the opening as neatly as a seamstress could have done it. Local anesthetics had made the thing painless. The operative-patient had recovered normally.

Immediately upon learning of this Childers had duplicated the operation. Not that there was any need. His appendix was like every other organ in his body—sound, and in perfect order. But he could get along without it. He removed the little worm-shaped process and finished everything within an hour, having experienced neither pain nor difficulty, thanks to numerous assistants and the plentiful use of ice and iodine. Thus he satisfied himself.

Inexorably his mind was drawn to the possibilities. There was but one way to make certain that his heart was all that it should be. Never before had his thorax been opened for any purpose. Again and again, of course, the surgeon had been called upon to investigate the pericardiac cavity, but always in some other person.—Could it be done?

It never occurred to him that there was anything sacrilegious in the idea. He had long ago learned to dispense with the fear of sacrilege. To him all facts were sacred, not merely a certain group of facts. He held that the intelligent curiosity of the trained scientific mind need stop at nothing, in the interests of humanity.

It was purely a question of ways and means. Now that he had settled the problem to the extent of determining what should be the next step, his curiosity would never permit him to stop. He had to know; he would not be true to his training if he hesitated at this point.

Already he knew as much about the human mechanism as mankind had been able to learn up to now. There was nothing further for him to teach himself; he had covered the entire field. This, and this only, remained to him. All else was old. As the world’s greatest surgeon, it was his duty to proceed.

He stepped to the desk, picked up a telephone, and secured a connection.

“Doctor Childers speaking.…The major operating room, tonight at ten.…I will bring the patient with me.…Thoracotomy.…Local anesthetics only.…Local only, I said.…Very well; goodbye.”

He secured another connection, and again he spoke in his even, unperturbed tones.

“Doctor Avery, this is Childers talking.…Nicely, thanks.…Yes; and I’d like to have your presence tonight at ten, at the Columbus. Can you manage it? I give you my assurance it will be worth your trouble.…Good. And goodbye.”

He called several others, saying much the same to each, except that in one instance he added:

“Can I count on you for a little assistance?.…Thoracotomy.…Thanks very kindly.”

The thing was arranged. Immediately he dismissed the matter from his mind. He had done all that could be done just then; his mentality was too well disciplined to waste precious time and energy in useless worry. He turned his attention to other matters, and for the balance of the day he utterly forgot his plans for the evening.

About nine o’clock that night his subconscious mind recalled the matter. Methodically he prepared himself. As a matter of simple precaution he telephoned to his lawyer, who obligingly came at once and drew up Childers’ will. The surgeon would have advised the same step on the part of any patient under like circumstances. He overlooked nothing.

At five minutes to ten he entered the hospital, finding all in readiness. Said the head nurse:

“Where is the patient, Doctor?”

“I am the patient.”

The woman asked nothing further. Childers had removed that appendix in this place. She preferred, as many of us prefer, to let the matter remain a fascinating mystery for a little while.

Childers found all of the men to whom he had telephoned, gathered there before him. Each understood that something extraordinary was to take place. They waited, chatting about other affairs, until Childers had placed himself upon the operating table and signified that he was ready to elucidate.

The room contained, besides the group of surgeons, six nurses in the usual all-enveloping white. Instruments, apparata, all were at hand. The air was filled with the sweet pungency of baked cloth. Over everything, the gravely potential hush of such moments.

Said Childers:

“I think you will agree that auto-thoracotomy is something new.”

They exchanged startled glances.

“I will need,” continued Childers, “a little help with the sawing. Jordan has been good enough to donate his skill to the cause. I think that is all that needs to be said just now,” as he lay back on the table. “The ice, if you please; right here on my chest; afterwards, iodine.”

In silence the anesthesia proceeded. Inevitably it must have occurred to one or more present that this man who was called “cold-blooded” would need less refrigeration than the normal patient. As a matter of fact, however, Childers required a trifle longer than ordinary to benumb the nerves of his chest.

Presently he was ready. He directed one nurse to hold his head up and another to relieve her; two others to hold the mirror at the correct angle so that he could be sure of what he was doing; and the rest to stand ready with the instruments and iodine.

Without hesitation or delay Childers proceeded to his task. The position made it awkward for him to employ forceps and scissors; he was reduced to the scalpel almost entirely. But the watchers noted among the tray full of tools, two hymenotomes and a neurotome. Evidently Childers would not stop until he had explored between membranes and had divided nerves, in his search.

Three incisions were made, two vertical and one horizontal, after the procedure first advocated by Del Vecchio. Next, the fourth, fifth and sixth ribs, together with their accompanying cartilages, were divided; it was here that Doctor Jordan’s assistance was needed, for the chainsaw was too slow to suit the anesthesia, and Casselberry’s saw was awkward for Childers to use. Jordan’s hand was steady, strong, and swift. Presently the displaced portions of the thoracic wall were all firmly held out of the way by tenaculum hooks and perineal straps. The pleural membrane was exposed. Childers pushed this out of the way with his finger; and the pericardiac sac itself was in view.

Childers paused. His heart was laboring. Everyone in the room could plainly hear its pumping, as the muscles pulled and pushed, pulled and pushed in their ceaseless maintenance of the blood supply. Innumerable times Childers had watched the action of other hearts than his own. He saw nothing, as yet, to distinguish this from any other.

With the forceps he raised the pericardium enough to snip the membrane with the scissors. Two or three slashes, only, and he was gazing directly upon his heart.

It looked to be perfectly normal. A slight glow of pride came into Childers’ eyes. Not for nothing had he taken such rigorous care of himself. His own professional judgment, as borne out by his ears as well as his eyes, was that that heart was good for sixty or seventy more years.

Gingerly he felt of it, the powerful organ pulsing in his fingers like a great fish just pulled from the water. The sensation was queer, but not painful. Childers touched every portion.

There was no sign of fatty degeneration. He had expected none. Neither was there that extremely rare condition known to the profession as fibroid heart. It goes without saying that no dilatation, hypertrophy or any other irregularity was present. The throbbing muscles seemed to be just what they should be.

His curiosity was no better off than before.

For some time he pondered, making no comment, hearing none. Twice he re-examined his heart. There is such a thing in the annals of medicine, as ossification of the cardiac muscle; Garangeot and Battaloni attest to the instances. But Childers could feel nothing that resembled bone, nor anything else of a foreign nature.

He drew a deep breath. The anesthesia would soon wear off. But one thing remained to him.

“I shall want,” spoke he, “both Wyoth’s and the fistula needles; and be sure they are correctly threaded. Place them right here, where I can put my fingers on them instantly. Four of each. Thank you. Also a lens—that reading glass will do nicely. And stand ready to take hold in case my strength fails.”

For the first time, one of his colleagues ventured a question.

“What are you going to do, Childers?”

“I am going to look into my heart.”

An exclamation escaped one of the nurses. A look from Childers, and she controlled herself, abashed. The others remained silent and motionless.

Childers picked out a fresh scalpel. He poised it over his heart, meditatively; then cast a quick glance around, to see if the needles, ready-threaded in their spring-operated holders, were within easy reach. Then he pressed the blade of the knife against the right ventricle.

At the same instant, the watchers saw a wonderful thing.

Childers stopped the action of his heart. He did not breathe, either. For the next ten seconds, the man’s body was still and lifeless, save for his fingers, his eyes and his brain.

Once, twice, thrice the keen edge cut into the muscle.

With the third cut the inner lining bulged. Childers gave another glance to make sure of the needles; then made the final cut.

Out poured his blood. Heedless, his eyes fixed upon what he could see in the mirror. Childers seized the ventricle in both hands, and forced wide the freshly made opening.

He peered inside his heart.

His eyes dilated. He snatched the forceps, reached through the opening, and withdrew a small, dark, pear-shaped sac. A single snip of the scissors, and its membrane was divided, enough for its contents to be revealed to the eye.

It was a tiny human form, scarcely an inch in length; not like a newly born babe, but a fully developed adult on a miniature scale. Childers placed it in one hand, and with the other he focused the reading glass. As he did so, the Lilliputian figure stirred, struggled, emitted an infinitesimal cry, and sat up.

Childers spoke. His voice was hushed, and overflowing with surprise and awe.

“Mildred! Why, how could you have got into—”

Childers dropped everything. The fragile creature fell to his chest, rolled over and over, dropped to the floor. It struck the tiling with a faint, liquid thud.

Childers tried his best to reach the needles…