The Final Diagnosis by Arthur Hailey Read Free Book Online

fingers. All this had been accomplished in silence. Now Pearson shifted his cigar slightly and grunted a “Thanks.”
    He crossed to the table and, taking the clip board which McNeil held out to him, began to read it, apparently oblivious of everything else. So far Pearson had not even glanced at the body on the table. Watching the performance covertly, as he, too, moved across, it occurred to Seddons that it was like the entry of a maestro before a symphony. All that was missing was applause.
    Now that Pearson had digested the case history he, too, inspected the body, comparing his findings with the notes Seddons had written. Then he put the clip board down and, removing his cigar, faced the nurses across the table. “This is your first experience of an autopsy, I believe.”
    The girls murmured, “Yes, sir,” or, “Yes, Doctor.”
    Pearson nodded. “Then I will explain that I am Dr. Pearson, the pathologist of this hospital. These gentlemen are Dr. McNeil, the resident in pathology, and Dr. Seddons, a resident in surgery, in his third year . . .” He turned to Seddons. “Am I right?”
    Seddons smiled. “Quite right, Dr. Pearson.”
    Pearson continued, “In his third year of residency, and who is favoring us with a spell of duty in Pathology.” He glanced at Seddons. “Dr. Seddons will shortly qualify to practice surgery and be released upon an unsuspecting public.”
    Two of the girls giggled; the others smiled. Seddons grinned; he enjoyed this. Pearson never missed an opportunity to take a dig at surgeons and surgery, probably with good reason—in forty years of pathology the old man must have uncovered a lot of surgical bloopers. He glanced across at McNeil. The resident was frowning. He doesn’t approve, Seddons thought. Mac likes his pathology straight. Now Pearson was talking again.
    “The pathologist is often known as the doctor the patient seldom sees. Yet few departments of a hospital have more effect on a patient’s welfare.”
    Here comes the sales pitch, Seddons thought, and Pearson’s next words proved him right.
    “It is pathology which tests a patient’s blood, checks his excrements, tracks down his diseases, decides whether his tumor is malignant or benign. It is pathology which advises the patient’s physician on disease and sometimes, when all else in medicine fails”—Pearson paused, looked down significantly at the body of George Andrew Dunton, and the eyes of the nurses followed him—“it is the pathologist who makes the final diagnosis.”
    Pearson paused again. What a superb actor the old man is, Seddons thought. What an unabashed, natural ham!
    Now Pearson was pointing with his cigar. “I draw your attention,” he was saying to the nurses, “to some words you will find on the wall of many autopsy rooms.” Their eyes followed his finger to the framed maxim thoughtfully provided by a scientific supply house— Mortui Vivos Docent . Pearson read the Latin aloud, then translated. “The dead teach the living.” He looked down again at the body. “That is what will happen now. This man apparently”—he emphasized the word “apparently”—“died of coronary thrombosis. By autopsy we shall discover if that is true.”
    At this Pearson took a deep draw on his cigar, and Seddons, knowing what was coming, moved nearer. He himself might be only a bit player in this scene, but he had no intention of missing a cue. As Pearson exhaled a cloud of blue smoke, he handed the cigar to Seddons who took it and placed it down, away from the table. Now Pearson surveyed the instruments laid out before him and selected a knife. With his eye he calculated where he would cut, then swiftly, cleanly, deeply, applied the sharp steel blade.
    McNeil was watching the student nurses covertly. An autopsy, he reflected, would never be recommended viewing for the fainthearted, but even to the experienced the first incision is sometimes hard to take. Until this point the body on the table has at