Dr. Feelgood by Richard A. Lertzman, William J. Birnes Read Free Book Online Page A

conditions at his hospital as adverse at best and fatally critical at worse. Infectious austeomyelitis , an infection of the bone, often lingered in patients for many years. It was an infection brought about, during wartime, by the septic nature of bullets and shrapnel. It was difficult to treat before the development of antibiotics and severely weakened a patient’s entire immune system. Gangrene, always a problem in wartime because of the septic nature of wounds, often progressed faster than the amputations performed to arrest it. Moreover, because neither the means to prevent tetanus nor the means to treat it had been discovered, doctors had to stand by while patients died, their bodies wracked with cramps and their death masks a testament to the pain they endured as infection ravaged their bodies. Max would attend the two doctors and their nurses when they removed blood-drenched bandages applied at the front to soldiers’ wounds. Max saw how the wounds were literally infested with crawling maggots. It was a gruesome sight, but it wasn’t until years later that doctors discovered what indigenous and native populations already knew: Flesh-eating larvae cleansed the wound of decaying tissue. And Max watched all this and learned.
    The Spanish flu pandemic in 1917 brought more chaos to a hospital already overwhelmed by the casualties of war. Max said that doctors watched helplessly as victims died within twenty-four hours of contracting the disease and were as horrified at the speed of the epidemic’s spread as they were at the speed of the acceleration of the patients’ symptoms. The bluish-black discoloration of the victims’ faces, resulting from a loss of oxygen as the flu filled up their lungs and brought on congestive heart failure, resembled that caused by the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Hospital beds were already filled up by wounded soldiers, and hospitals could not stretch their services or even provide beds for the flu victims. Morgues, too, were overwhelmed as the city faced the problem of providing for the families of the dead. But through it all, though the cause of the disease was unknown and there were no preventive measures or therapies for the patients, the flu did not strike the hospital staff in any great numbers. Max was among the lucky who never contracted the flu.
    Max had a rude introduction to the social and moral deterioration of Germany when he first encountered victims of the “hunger riots.” He was heading home after working the night shift at the hospital when the tramway car he was riding stopped because of a street disturbance. Max saw three men beating two women; he left the train and rushed to their defense. But the men quickly overpowered Max, leaving him half-conscious on the street. He was handcuffed and taken to police headquarters, where he was thrown into a jail cell. As he was dragged to the cell, police officers left their desks to kick and beat him. He was then tossed into a cell containing other battered individuals, indigents, and drunks who were barely conscious.
    Max heard about the hunger riots from the other prisoners. The two women Max had tried to protect were protestors in those riots and had been set on by the police. The riots had begun with the mutiny of a group of sailors in Kiel, the main base of the German Navy on the North Sea. Sailors were protesting conditions in the navy, lack of pay, and shortages of food. The mutiny was put down by the military, and the crown clamped down on the story, censuring news reports of the mutiny. But despite the censure, word of the rebellion spread across Germany and inspired the hunger riots. Germany was seething under the burden of war, war that was draining the civilian population of its resources and placing burdens on all of the public health systems. Max was among the lucky, however, because even though he had been beaten and thrown into jail, one of his father’s clients was the desk sergeant taking roll call of the